July 10, 2025 • 36 mins
What does it take to create a team that’s accountable, inspired, and consistently performing at a high level?
In Episode 30 of From Crisis to Justice, Parag L. Amin sits down with James Robbins - bestselling author of Nine Minutes on Monday, leadership expert, and keynote speaker with over 3,000 presentations under his belt. James has coached more than 50,000 managers, from NASA to Fortune 100 companies, helping them shift from task managers to people-first leaders.
Together, they dive into:
- Why most leaders are accidentally leading through fear or ambiguity
- How to know when to coach someone… and when it’s time to let them go
- Why caring deeply and holding people accountable aren’t mutually exclusive
- The difference between being a “driver” vs. a “builder” and how to find your leadership sweet spot
- The power of psychological safety and growth mindset in scaling culture and results
- Real strategies Parag plans to implement right now at LawPLA
If you’re a business owner or entrepreneur leading a team - or hoping to - this episode is packed with the real-world mindset and tools you need to grow yourself and your business the right way.
📚 Learn more about James Robbins:
Website:
Book: Nine Minutes on Monday (Available on Amazon)
New Book: The Call to Climb (Launching August)
🌐 Learn more about Parag & LawPLA:
Law Firm:
Parag’s Site:
Instagram:
TikTok:
LinkedIn:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur
were destroyedby an unethical businessman.
And I don't want that to happen to youor your family.
(00:23):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Welcome back, everybody. To.
From crisis to Justice.
I'm your host, Parag Amin.
(00:44):
And today I'm joined by my special guest,James Robbins.
James is a leadership expert,
bestselling author, keynote speakerand founder of the Robbins Group.
He's got 20 plus years in leadershipdevelopment
with over 3000 presentationsunder his belt.
James has helped over 50,000 managersaround the world transform
(01:08):
from task focused operators into peoplefirst leaders.
His simple framework book
called 9 Minutes on Mondayhas been adopted
by major organizationslike Nasser, FedEx, Ford and the U.S.
government.
James specializes in creating highperformance workplace cultures,
(01:28):
reducing turnover and boosting engagement
without complicatingor overcomplicating leadership.
James,thank you so much for joining me today.
Thanks for having me on your show.
So, James, how
did you get interestedor involved in this space
in the first placein terms of becoming a leadership expert?
(01:48):
When I was in college,I wanted to be a film director.
I wanted to make movies,and then my life took a big right
turn and I ended up going into ministry,Christian ministry.
And I did that for a number of years.
I had not expected to ever do that.
And at some point I began to get restlessand I thought, Well,
is there something else I could do?
And I took inspiration from John Maxwell,who was a former preacher,
(02:11):
and then he started teaching leadership.
And I was already teaching leadership in ain a not for profit setting.
And so that's really where it began. I.
I spoke firstat a not for profit leadership conference
and then, you know, my namejust kept getting passed around
and eventuallyit turned into a full fledged business.
That's great.
So how, if at all, doesyour does your faith or your religious
(02:35):
background tie in to your leadershipcoaching?
Meaning, are there any principlesyou've borrowed or taken
and are there things you've left out?
And if so, why?
That's a great question.
I think definitely influence that heavily.
I think one of the thingswhen you are a leader in a
(02:55):
in a faith environment, a lot of theleadership is protective, right?
It's this idea of kind of watching overthis group of people.
At the same time leading in honestly,any non-for-profit setting
churches or religious organizationswouldn't be much different.
But it's it's a real challengebecause you often
will have a small paid staff,but then you have this massive group of
(03:20):
volunteers essentially, you can'tfire them, you can't kick them out, right.
Lest they do something totally egregious.
And you just have to find a wayto work with them
and you have to find a way to make it workand solve the relationship issues.
And, you know, there's no calling. h.R.
Hey, get me someone new.
Like thatjust doesn't exist in that world.
So you really cut your teethon leadership in that kind of setting
(03:45):
in terms of what would I have left out?
Well, obviously, the,you know, the spiritual aspect of things
in the in the business world,you can't bring that over.
But for the most part, people are people.
And the principles that apply,whether it's in a not for profit
or in a Fortune 100,they're pretty much the same.
(04:08):
Interesting.
So so you're sayingmaybe it's a little bit more difficult
in a religious setting than it is in ain a private organization?
Because to some extent,you're kind of stuck with who you've got
and you have to find a wayto lead them into
either becoming the type of people
or having the types of habitsthat you would need them
(04:32):
to have to be successfulin the organization, for sure.
And you know, when you get in ain a religious,
let's say, religiousdominant denomination of some kind,
the other focus is really on helpingpeople grow.
Right.
Like, the focus is just helpingsomeone advance in whatever area
their lifecould be in all areas of their life.
And so it's a little bitlike I think great religious leaders
(04:53):
are also like great coachesand they're consistently coaching people
and trying to help themreach their full potential.
In fact, I told you earlierthat I took inspiration from John Maxwell.
Well, a number of years agoI had a chance to
his team invited me to come with himto South America,
which was a huge honor for me.
And I got to just him and I got to train1000 business leaders for an entire day.
(05:17):
And, you know, I was the opening act.
I get that he was the main event.
But still,I had a chance to spend time with him.
And he he also had
said to me,he said, absolutely, leadership in
like a churchsetting is much harder than leadership in
just the average,you know, corporate setting.
(05:37):
Right. So
when you are in a corporate setting
where you havemaybe a little bit more freedom in terms
of whether you keep somebody onor let them go,
at what point do you think that somebody
needs leadershipand maybe some more coaching?
And where is that linewhere you decide, look, this person
(05:59):
maybe just doesn't have the raw materialsor the motivation
or something else to really, trulybe success ful in this organization.
Yeah.
Parang That's the million dollar questionsometimes, right?
Like, how do you knowwhether someone needs to be let go or not?
And this will go back.
There's a foundational pieceto this answer, and it has to do with
what I teachabout caring about your people.
(06:21):
Right.
Like, great leaders just careabout your staff, you know your staff.
You care about them.
And the reason you dothat, there's many reasons.
But the more you care about somebodyand as you get to know them, then you have
you have a better vantage pointto look into their life
and know, is this person,is this just beyond them?
(06:42):
Right.
From a capacity perspective,like not everybody can do every role
or is this a drive and ambition thing?
You're able to see that a lot more clearlywhen you know them better
because let's say,you know, obviously we don't each other
other than we just met today.
But if you know me really well and you'remy boss, you also know that there's
(07:03):
other areas of my life, let's say I'mreally passionate about or maybe off work.
I'm I'm devoting all this timeand hours to this so you know
that I'm capableof being passionate about something.
But for some reason,I'm not bringing it to the workplace.
Okay? That's a gap. That's a problem.
So you canthat would be a sign for you, right?
So the more you know your
staff, the more you'reyou're able to make that decision.
(07:25):
But the other piece is going to beis going to be
that that consistent coachingthat we give someone.
Right.
When when there's a gap in performance.
Right.
It's our job to go to shinea light on that and just be like, hey,
you're supposed to be here,but you're here.
Hey, what's up?
And I understand that there could bemultiple answers to that, right?
(07:47):
It could be that, again,it's beyond someone's capacity.
It could be that they they don't have theresources to do what you're asking them.
It could be that there's external thingsgetting in the way.
You know, we quickly jump to well,are they not passionate?
Is this a motivation problem?
And most people that's where we go first.
Like the staff person didn't do this.
(08:08):
You know, obviously they didn't want to,but that may not be the case.
Sometimes it's a clarity thingand you just haven't been clear
on what you're asking them to do.
Mm hmm.
And so
is there
is there a point where a leader can caremaybe too much?
You know, and here's what I mean is that
(08:28):
as a leader,
we have to
understand our people.
We have to care about our people to be tobe a great leader or even a good leader.
I think
there's an aspect of understanding people,understanding
motivations, understandinghow to help get things done.
It's a combination of
(08:49):
a holistic understandingof how things come together,
how work gets done, and what makes peoplewant to get things done in terms
of sharing the vision, sharing the missionand there's that aspect of things.
And then there's alsothe human compassion, understanding
aspect of things where somebody mightjust be going through a tough time
(09:10):
and it's uncharacteristic of themto to underperform or not perform at all.
And there's
drawing that line versusdrawing the line of,
well, look, I mean, you've been providedthese opportunities and
you're being paid to not just work,but ultimately, especially in higher
performance settings such as my law firmor many other places that are beyond just.
(09:35):
Did you show up todayand did you punch the clock
and did you move this thingfrom this place to that place?
It's ultimately what results did you get?
And if the person isn'tquite getting the results, you know, at
what point do you as the leader say, look,
this is uncharacteristic of them,I need to do something a little bit more
(09:57):
because, you know, I understand thatthere's a human compassion
element to things versus,you know, making this
the strategic decision of,you know, as a leader,
you've also got to decide what's bestfor the team and the organization
and ultimately to say, look, you know,
unfortunately, we are going to have to letyou go and find someone else.
(10:19):
Yeah.
So back to the
initial question that you kick that offwith, can a leader care too much?
My answer to that is, no, they can't.
They can't care too much.
But what they can do is they can careand then not expect results.
And at the end of the day,all of us are in business to produce
some kind of resultso that we solve some kind of a problem
(10:40):
right at the end of the day,that's what it's all about.
But if you want to get the best
out of your people as a leader, yes,you got to care.
Definitely care about them, care for them.
At the same time, you got to you have toexpect them to produce results.
Right. When we're at work,
it's a different context than, let's say,family.
Family. It's likeyou need to care about your family.
(11:02):
Just because they're family doesn'talways work out great, but their family
work is not family, right?
And we're here for a reason,but a metaphor
that often resonates with people
when I am working with the organizationis this idea of a bank account.
So you think about a bank accountlike human relationships
(11:22):
or like a bank account.It's it's a value exchange.
Some people don't like
to think of it in this way,but it really is a value exchange.
So in a bank account,there's deposits and withdrawals
and we always want to make surethat the deposits
outnumber the withdrawals rightin your own bank account.
Otherwise you're overdrawn,you get fees, all of that.
Like you get penalizedfor being overdrawn.
(11:43):
It's no different in leadership.
So it's deposits and withdrawals.
What's a deposit?
Caring about staff, helping them grow,
recognizing great work, appreciating them.
Those are all depositskind of to the emotional bank account.
Well, what are the withdrawals?
Are things like holding peopleaccountable, expecting results,
(12:03):
challenging people.
Those are also thingsthat those are not bad or wrong.
That's part of work, right.
Doing those things.
I'll give you an example.
There was a manufacturing companythat hired me and they wanted me to go
in to one of their plantsand turn it into an example plant.
And one of the things they said was that
this plant
(12:24):
needs more accountability, like peoplehave to hold each other accountable.
Boy, they're not holding the standard.
And I said, okay, for sure,we can talk about that.
But that's not where we startbecause we just go in and
and let's go back to the bank account.
Let's just go inand let's just start making withdrawals.
We need more withdrawals here,which is right.
But if we don't
(12:44):
add more deposits at the same time,we're going to bankrupt the relationship.
And that's where people get to this place,where they're they'll say things like,
well, fine,I'll I'll come in and do my job,
but don't think I'm going to doone minute more.
Right?
That's when people take, in a sense,kind of ownership of the energy exchange
and they try to balance it back out.
So back to the original question aboutcan you care too much?
(13:08):
No, because those are two.
Can you deposit too much in your bankaccount?
No, But you have to make surethat you are also withdrawing.
And and here's the real challenge.
Prague is that if we were to take a or
all of us who are leaders, we're on somethere's a spectrum
that we're on where we favor resultsor we favor relationships.
(13:32):
Drivers and builders, right?
Everyone, somewhere on there.
I'm a little bitmore on the builder side, right?
And that's what made me good at ministry.
It was about relationships.
Well, neither is it is right.
It's just it's just how we are it.
Our goal is to try to get more towardsthe middle.
So drivers yeah they've they got to focusa little bit more on the people
(13:52):
side, the builderswho it's just natural for them
to care, just easily for them to care.
Well,they've got to make sure that they're
focused on results that they actually holdpeople accountable,
that they don't make excuses for people.
So this is why leadership is sucha great area to grow personally, Right?
So for me, my nature is a builder,which means I have to make sure
(14:16):
that I'm diligent on holding the lineand not making excuses
for people and expecting,yeah, you got to get the result.
Yeah. And love that.
So when it comes to leadership,
what are your thoughts onhow we can all become better leaders,
including, you know,you use the terms driver and builder.
(14:38):
How does
one figure out if they're a driver,a builder, or maybe something else?
And how do they go about decidingwhat aspect of leadership
they should really be focusedon improving to become a better leader?
Because it's it's such a broad term.
There's so many thingsthat somebody can do.
And so how does one decide where to start?
(15:01):
So if you think aboutif you think about human potential,
just even think about uslike both of us are business owners,
you and I can come to work.
And because we're the business owner,we're pretty engaged, right?
Like it's our companyand we're pretty invested in it
and we work over time and, you know,we don't even think of it that way.
But even you and I,who are the most engaged
(15:24):
somedays, we're not the most engagedfor our own standard, right?
Like some days you're not your best hour.
Maybe you are all the time for I'mnot always my best, right?
So sometimes I'm on all cylindersand sometimes I'm.
I'm less than I'll send cylinders.
Well, that's a gap, right?
There's a gap in the potentialthat I just brought to my own company.
(15:44):
Well, now, multiply that by howevermany staff you have and you have these.
And everyone has a gap.
Everyone has a range.
What leaders do?
Leaders are able to take peoplewhatever range they are and consistently
get people to bring more to work each day.
And so if I have if I have ten staffand I get them all
(16:07):
to bring 10% more that day,then it's Lilly.
Like I added an employee.
If you want to look at froma numbers perspective. So
what engages people?
Well, some of the things we already talkedabout, right, Making sure that we care
about our staff for sure,helping people grow,
recognizing great work when we see it,
(16:28):
but then also giving peoplewhat I call a mountain to climb.
So when you compare, when you take a look
at a lot of people's jobs, they representsort of a hamster wheel right?
People or you have treadmills,
you want people get on it,they work hard all day, they get off it.
And if you're on the treadmillthat you didn't go anywhere,
(16:50):
you just used up a lot of energyand a lot of jobs are like that.
What leaders do is leaders are ableto help give someone a mountain to climb,
whether that's a quarterlygoal, whether that's a KPI.
I mean, everyonein a company should have at least one KPI,
whether it's a projectthey're working on, basically
anything they're working on thatthey can show progress.
(17:13):
Because what happens for us as humans
is that when we have a goaland we're making progress,
it makes us feel happy,it makes us feel satisfied about the job.
So it's this wholefirst of all, the goal creates
striving right within us,and then striving creates progress.
Progress makes us happyand keeps the loop going.
(17:34):
Where we come in
as leaders then is is to be ableto give people feedback on their progress
and a great test for everyonewho's listening,
who's a leader isJust think of all your staff
that report to you, you know,could you tomorrow
at lunch, goand give them feedback on their progress.
And if you're like, how would I do that?
(17:56):
You know, like Jerry runs
the front desk,How would I give feedback on his progress?
Well, that'sjust sort of a red flag to show you that
he's missing a piece of the thingthat drives us
from a motivational activityto pursue something.
And so get Jerry at the front desk on somekind of a mountain, some kind of a goal.
(18:18):
And these are just some of theessential elements that you put together.
You care about people, right?
Help them grow, recognize them,and then give them something
to do where they can make progressand then give feedback on it.
And the feedback is either,hey, you're doing amazing or
you're not where you're supposed to be,What's up?
And that'swhere the standards come back in.
(18:40):
Yeah, I love that. James.
You know, in terms of
in terms of the myths
that people have about leadership,let's let's bust some of those.
So what do you thinkare some common misconceptions
about leadership, particularlyas you look throughout organizations,
(19:00):
meaning like it doesn't matterhow big or small they are.
This is a very typical mythor misconception about leadership.
That's a great
question that would make a great chapterin a book I've yet to write.
Parab But let's start with a couple,I would think One is
one isthat leaders need to know everything
(19:23):
and I think especially when peopleare younger, I'll speak for me.
When I first became a leader,
there was just so much I didn't knowand I felt like I had to know
to have the respect and followingof the people that I was with.
And so, you know, you fake the answer. You
just try to sound smart.
(19:44):
You get really defensive
if somebody challenges you becauseyour ego is so involved in those moments.
And it wasn't until I had a mentorand I was in a meeting one time
and someone fired off a question to himand he was like, Oh, I don't know.
I don't know the answer,but let me go find it out for you.
And at that moment,
(20:04):
it was like it freed me up to go, Oh,I, I don't have to always know the answer.
So you don't always have to knoweverything.
In fact, even if you do know everything,you shouldn't, you should not like you do
because you want to bring in your peopleto get their ideas.
You want them to contribute.
But that's how they stake a claimin your company, right?
(20:27):
If you're just giving directives allthe time, there's nothing for them to own.
So that would be one I think the otherone is going to be about,
well, I'll say this
Most of us come to leadership the same way
right?
Like you were good at something,you worked hard, people respected
you, trusted you, and they said, Hey,we're going to put you in management.
(20:49):
And what's was so bizarre
is that what got you into leadership
is notwhat's going to get you to the next stage.
And because what got you into
leadership was just who you wereand how you worked.
But now what gets you to the next levelis how well you move people.
It's just a completely differentskill set.
(21:12):
So for every leaderwho doesn't begin to devote
time to the mastery of the craftof moving people,
you're going to beyou're going to be missing out.
And for
business owners,you know, it's going to be the same thing.
We're all trying to grow our business
and the challenge for leadersis, you know, we're all busy, right?
(21:34):
Like, just let me get my work done
and then to know that allBut wait a minute, I part of my work
is making sure this employee,this employee,
this employee, that it's clear whatthey're doing, making sure this employee
are being developed and coach makingsure this employee, you know,
is is finding outwhy they didn't get that done.
It's it's just part of the role.
(21:56):
And I've had those days where I'm like,I hope my staff don't find me
so I can get stuff done right.
So it's just but then you realize, waita minute, my scoreboard is no longer me.
My scoreboard, whether I'm winning or not,
has to do with how engaged are my people.
And that's why the focus alwayshas to come back to people.
(22:17):
Yeah, I love that.
And you know,you were talking earlier about let's say,
the ranges that people can perform inand sometimes
it's on the higher end,other days on the lower end.
So what are your thoughts on getting
whether it's for yourself
and your team or your team
to the higherend of that performance metric
(22:39):
or that performance rangewhile still balancing
against burnout?
That's a great question.
And again, one of the reasonswhy you want a good relationship
with your staff so that you can reada little bit of those vital signs.
So to speak. Right.
I think most people
(23:00):
I think most people are not pushed
enough, and I'm going to qualify that.
I think most people are pushedin that they are insanely busy
and they have more work to do than theythey feel like they have time to do it.
So people are pushed in that way,but they're not pushed
in the way of You couldyou could do this better, right?
(23:21):
You could.
It's not like you can do more things,but it's like you could bring
more of your talents to your role.
And what holds so many people backis usually some kind of fear
or some kind of imposter syndrome,some kind of some kind of internal thing.
I think the leaders who are able toto understand that,
right,it's like you want to increase the output.
(23:43):
You want people to tap into strengthsand passions of their own
that they bring to the workplace,and then also help them
shed some of those things that limit them,that hold them back
from really doing that. So
and another way to do that is,
you know, I always like to ask anyonethat comes on our team, I'll ask them,
(24:07):
you know, what are your career goalsor what are your goals in life?
What are your career goals?
I even asked themwhat are their financial goals?
Because I'll say something like,
I want you to make the most here than thatyou've made anywhere.
Which then opens the door for me to say,
What's the mostyou've ever made in a month?
And then, regardless of what they say,I might say,
okay, well, we're not there yet,but how do we get you there?
(24:27):
Right?
So right from the beginning,I'm on their side and I'm
and I'm thinking, okay, well,
maybe we can tie in profit sharing for youon course sales or whatever it might be.
But what are your goals in life?
What are your career goals?
You know, what's your financial goalswhen it comes to career goals?
You know, I hadwe had a staff member and his career goal.
(24:48):
He wanted to start his ownbarbecue restaurant.
That was his dream.
So obviously he'snot going to stay with me forever.
And I always assume that no oneis staying with me forever, right?
Like everyone is just thatwe were crossing paths for a little while
and we're going to help each other.
But hewanted to start a barbecue restaurant, so.
All right.
(25:08):
Every time I was at a barbecue restaurant,I would like ask the manager
if I could see the smoker.I would take photos.
I would send it to him like,hey, here's the smoker in this place.
And just little things that showsthat I'm interested in his life.
But then also from a coaching perspective,when you know this
this person was dropping balls wasone of the clients or with the project,
(25:29):
I was able to talk to him to say like,you have got to get better at this skill
and if you want to run a restaurant,do you think that this will be okay?
And so I was able to tie his even growth
and development into something for him
so that it's not just doing my stuff.
It's like,no, you used to grow in this in your life
(25:50):
espec actually, because of what you wantto do, which I hope you go and do it
and I hope you're successful at it,but you have to be better.
And I think this is where
this is where I think a lot of leadersprobably leave a lot of people's
potential on the table is just finding outwhat makes them tick, what
(26:10):
what do they really want to do,and then call people
to be the best version of themselves.Is this your best?
I think you can do better.
Yeah, I really like that, James.
And you know, obviously it goes to showhow deeply you've thought about this
and how deeply you understandhuman nature and human motivation.
(26:33):
Let me share this with you.
It's a it's a perception of mineand maybe it's
a bias.
It's that
I think the challenge,the biggest challenge of modern day
is we're more comfortablethan we've ever been.
We don't even have to if we want.
(26:53):
We don't have to cook.
We don't even have to go outto pick up fast food.
We can just push a few buttonson our phone and it gets delivered to us.
Social media.
You don't have to go out,get dressed to meet with friends.
You don't even have to pick up a phonecall.
You can just scroll through on a phoneand see 100 or thousands,
if you want, of people's lives in moments.
(27:14):
And it really requires no effort.
And I think, you know,the biggest challenges
that in today's comfortable
society, dealing with discomfort
has become
much more strenuous than it's ever been,
including receiving feedback when
(27:35):
when somebody isn't performingto the level
that you believethey can to their own potential.
And so what thoughts doyou have on providing feedback?
Well, it's a two part question,as many of these have been,
is, one,do you agree or disagree with that?
And two, what what advice do you have
for leaders in today's modern agedealing with these these challenges of.
(28:00):
Look, I mean, the reality is we are,in fact the most comfortable
civilizationthat's ever lived on planet Earth.
And so we have more conveniencesthan kings had even a hundred years ago.
And that's the averageeveryday person as more conveniences.
So, you know, whatwhat insights do you have?
And again,do you agree or disagree with that?
(28:21):
Well, I agree that society, in a sensehas gotten more convenient.
We have more comfort.
And there's a part of thatthat makes us a bit softer.
So when you think about a company,
a company is going to riseor fall based on its culture.
And this is really importantto understand as a business owner,
because a lot of times it doesn't evenit's not even on our radar.
(28:42):
Our culture is just like now he'sgot to find more clients and you know,
we're going to recession like we got towe got to sell, sell, sell.
But at the end of the day,it's still a culture
and you think about a culture,but let's go to the biology for a moment.
If we take a culture medium, right,depends on the medium.
We can drop stem cells into one mediumand one petri dish
(29:02):
and it becomes and they all become livercells, change the medium.
Those same stem cells become skincells, right?
Like what they becomeis dependent on the medium.
And it's the same waywhen we build a company, right?
What are we dropping people into?
Because any of us who've workedin different companies for a while,
you understandthere's some strong cultures
you probably workedin, maybe some cultures, but that culture
(29:25):
actually impactswhat you bring to the to the stage. So
if you want to build a high performanceculture, though,
and I'm going to define that as that'sbringing the best out of everybody
and where we can speak truthfullyto each other and people aren't
triggered and defensiveand they can take feedback,
(29:47):
then high performing cultures.
In a sense,
there's a foundation of of whata high performance culture is.
There's two thingsthat are the foundation.
The one is psychological safety, right?
Where the company works hard at,where people feel it's safe to be me,
it's safe to contribute,
it's safe to make a mistake, in otherwords, is not held over me.
(30:09):
And we can learn from it.
And it's safe to challenge that.
Last one's the hard one,right? Safe to challenge.
But where there's a culturewhere I can speak up, I can tell my boss,
I don't think this is the best decision
right at the end of the day,it's the boss decision.
But I can speak up and say,I disagree with you on that. So
any company that'sserious about creating a high performance
(30:31):
culture, they have to work collectivelyto get there, right.
To be psychologically safe.
The other piece of thatis a growth mindset among the individuals.
So in other words,
let's say I'm an employee in a companyand the employee in the company's like,
yes, we're going to become
we're going to try to be morepsychologically safe, Great.
But nope, no company is going to do itperfectly.
(30:52):
People are going to make mistakes.
Someone's going to get stressedout, snap at someone, whatever.
It's not going to be perfect.
What covers that isthen me taking ownership
of having a growth mindsetthat what's most important to me
is to be the best version of myselfto grow, that I'm consistently growing,
and that when I have a growth mindsetand this is based on Kel Dweck,
(31:14):
some of her researchthat when I get feedback
that it's going to be
welcomed because it's helping me,I still might get triggered.
I have to remind myself,wait a minute, this is helping me.
So here's how these two thingswork together.
Then when it comes timefor when you're consistently sending out
(31:34):
that message as a boss, as a businessowner, as a leader on your team,
are going to havea psychological shaped culture.
And I want everyoneto adopt a growth mindset.
I mean, who who would it be behind that?
Right?
But then when you start to have
when you start to get feedbackand if someone starts getting defensive,
you can call them back to that commitmentof a growth mindset.
(31:57):
Like, in other words,hey, I'm not attacking you here,
I'm just trying to point something out.
I might notI might not be doing it perfectly.
I just need you to hear the message.
And I'll have even said to some staff,
like when we have to have a hard talk,I might say, Hey, I need that.
I need to have a conversation with you.
I'm going to need you to really stepinto a growth mindset here.
(32:18):
Right? That's the flat.
That's the warning sign.
We're going to havea difficult conversation.
And I really need you to to takeon a growth mindset and listen to me.
Right.
And then I'm going to speak my truth.
So it greases the wheels a bit.
And then, of course, I mean,they may not even agree with what I say,
and that's safe to challenge as well.
Like we need to be able to have that.
(32:39):
But at the end of the day,it's still going to come back down to
is whatever we're doingproducing results, right?
Are we fulfilling our mission?
That's the that's the that's our NorthStar and our values are the compass.
So does that make senseas I explain that, that
it's kind of a long wayto answer your question about how do we
how do we give feedbackwithout people being triggered while we
(33:01):
we go deeperand we create a culture of safety,
but also growth mindset and that justhas to become an expectation,
which is why we can have one on oneswith our employees to say,
Hey, where are you growing?
What are you working onin terms of your own personal growth?
And if you work here,you have to work on your as well.
It's just part of what we do.
(33:23):
And then also leaders lead the wayby saying, Hey, here's what I'm learning,
or I have a coach and I coach said thisand I made a mistake here.
I screwed up here.
Here's what I learned from it, though.
And making it okay to not be perfect
actually then brings bringsmore of people to the workplace.
That makes perfect sense.
James And so if people want to learna little bit more about leadership,
(33:48):
you know, they can certainly pick upyour current book 9 minutes on Monday.
And I know you've got a new booklaunching in a few months and love to hear
you talk a little bitabout that, the call to climb and
tell tell the listeners,if you would as well in a where
where they can either get your booksor learn more about you, your leadership
or if they want to, to work together
(34:10):
to improve their own leadershipor their organization's leadership.
How can they do that?
Appreciate that. Yeah,they can go to James Robbins dot com.
We have courses there, workshops happeningall the time.
You can just see if there's somethingthat appeals to you, whether it's helping
having one on being more productive,learning to delegate better.
So lots of things there.
A new book,The Call to Climb is coming out in August.
(34:34):
I'm really excited about it.
But it's it's not so much a leadershipbook as it is.
You becoming a best version of yourself.
It's written in a story format.
Like I said off air, it'ssort of The Alchemist meets Carl Jung
and dealingwith just realizing that our lives
are the product of the patternsin the programing that we've had.
And if we really want toif we really want to step into
(34:57):
the best version of ourselves,we have to realize what we're up against.
And it's often internal.
But when we do start to see the patternsdriving it,
we're able to make better choices.
And that usually takes us to the place
that we're trying to get to.
I love that.I love that. James, thank you for that.
And thank you for joining me today.
(35:18):
Prague, nice to be on yourshow. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, absolutely.
And to the listeners,I hope you got a lot out of this.
And, you know,James has been fantastic in terms
of sharing his knowledge,his wisdom, hard earned over the years.
And hopefully
some of that wisdomis giving you some insights
and help you on the pathto becoming a better leader
(35:41):
because that's one of the thingsthat makes entrepreneurship
so great, is it's it'snot just about yourself.
It's not just about building a business,but at each step of the way,
I personally believethat true entrepreneurship is not
is about improving yourself and creatinga great organization so that you can help
other people and impactother people's lives and be of service
(36:05):
not just to clients,but also to employees, and create
a great culture and organizationso that everything lives symbiotically.
And James, again, thank you for sharingsome of these insights because I know
that I have gotten severalgreat ideas from you today
that I am going to implementinto into my law firm
(36:26):
essentially today.
I'm going to take a breakafter this and start taking some notes on
exactly what I want to dobased on this conversation.
So, again, thank you for being here.
Thank you for sharing your wisdomand appreciate you being on.
Appreciate for all.
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur
were destroyedby an unethical businessman.
And I don't want that to happen to youor your family.
(00:23):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Welcome back, everybody. To.
From crisis to Justice.
I'm your host, Parag Amin.
(00:44):
And today I'm joined by my special guest,James Robbins.
James is a leadership expert,
bestselling author, keynote speakerand founder of the Robbins Group.
He's got 20 plus years in leadershipdevelopment
with over 3000 presentationsunder his belt.
James has helped over 50,000 managersaround the world transform
(01:08):
from task focused operators into peoplefirst leaders.
His simple framework book
called 9 Minutes on Mondayhas been adopted
by major organizationslike Nasser, FedEx, Ford and the U.S.
government.
James specializes in creating highperformance workplace cultures,
(01:28):
reducing turnover and boosting engagement
without complicatingor overcomplicating leadership.
James,thank you so much for joining me today.
Thanks for having me on your show.
So, James, how
did you get interestedor involved in this space
in the first placein terms of becoming a leadership expert?
(01:48):
When I was in college,I wanted to be a film director.
I wanted to make movies,and then my life took a big right
turn and I ended up going into ministry,Christian ministry.
And I did that for a number of years.
I had not expected to ever do that.
And at some point I began to get restlessand I thought, Well,
is there something else I could do?
And I took inspiration from John Maxwell,who was a former preacher,
(02:11):
and then he started teaching leadership.
And I was already teaching leadership in ain a not for profit setting.
And so that's really where it began. I.
I spoke firstat a not for profit leadership conference
and then, you know, my namejust kept getting passed around
and eventuallyit turned into a full fledged business.
That's great.
So how, if at all, doesyour does your faith or your religious
(02:35):
background tie in to your leadershipcoaching?
Meaning, are there any principlesyou've borrowed or taken
and are there things you've left out?
And if so, why?
That's a great question.
I think definitely influence that heavily.
I think one of the thingswhen you are a leader in a
(02:55):
in a faith environment, a lot of theleadership is protective, right?
It's this idea of kind of watching overthis group of people.
At the same time leading in honestly,any non-for-profit setting
churches or religious organizationswouldn't be much different.
But it's it's a real challengebecause you often
will have a small paid staff,but then you have this massive group of
(03:20):
volunteers essentially, you can'tfire them, you can't kick them out, right.
Lest they do something totally egregious.
And you just have to find a wayto work with them
and you have to find a way to make it workand solve the relationship issues.
And, you know, there's no calling. h.R.
Hey, get me someone new.
Like thatjust doesn't exist in that world.
So you really cut your teethon leadership in that kind of setting
(03:45):
in terms of what would I have left out?
Well, obviously, the,you know, the spiritual aspect of things
in the in the business world,you can't bring that over.
But for the most part, people are people.
And the principles that apply,whether it's in a not for profit
or in a Fortune 100,they're pretty much the same.
(04:08):
Interesting.
So so you're sayingmaybe it's a little bit more difficult
in a religious setting than it is in ain a private organization?
Because to some extent,you're kind of stuck with who you've got
and you have to find a wayto lead them into
either becoming the type of people
or having the types of habitsthat you would need them
(04:32):
to have to be successfulin the organization, for sure.
And you know, when you get in ain a religious,
let's say, religiousdominant denomination of some kind,
the other focus is really on helpingpeople grow.
Right.
Like, the focus is just helpingsomeone advance in whatever area
their lifecould be in all areas of their life.
And so it's a little bitlike I think great religious leaders
(04:53):
are also like great coachesand they're consistently coaching people
and trying to help themreach their full potential.
In fact, I told you earlierthat I took inspiration from John Maxwell.
Well, a number of years agoI had a chance to
his team invited me to come with himto South America,
which was a huge honor for me.
And I got to just him and I got to train1000 business leaders for an entire day.
(05:17):
And, you know, I was the opening act.
I get that he was the main event.
But still,I had a chance to spend time with him.
And he he also had
said to me,he said, absolutely, leadership in
like a churchsetting is much harder than leadership in
just the average,you know, corporate setting.
(05:37):
Right. So
when you are in a corporate setting
where you havemaybe a little bit more freedom in terms
of whether you keep somebody onor let them go,
at what point do you think that somebody
needs leadershipand maybe some more coaching?
And where is that linewhere you decide, look, this person
(05:59):
maybe just doesn't have the raw materialsor the motivation
or something else to really, trulybe success ful in this organization.
Yeah.
Parang That's the million dollar questionsometimes, right?
Like, how do you knowwhether someone needs to be let go or not?
And this will go back.
There's a foundational pieceto this answer, and it has to do with
what I teachabout caring about your people.
(06:21):
Right.
Like, great leaders just careabout your staff, you know your staff.
You care about them.
And the reason you dothat, there's many reasons.
But the more you care about somebodyand as you get to know them, then you have
you have a better vantage pointto look into their life
and know, is this person,is this just beyond them?
(06:42):
Right.
From a capacity perspective,like not everybody can do every role
or is this a drive and ambition thing?
You're able to see that a lot more clearlywhen you know them better
because let's say,you know, obviously we don't each other
other than we just met today.
But if you know me really well and you'remy boss, you also know that there's
(07:03):
other areas of my life, let's say I'mreally passionate about or maybe off work.
I'm I'm devoting all this timeand hours to this so you know
that I'm capableof being passionate about something.
But for some reason,I'm not bringing it to the workplace.
Okay? That's a gap. That's a problem.
So you canthat would be a sign for you, right?
So the more you know your
staff, the more you'reyou're able to make that decision.
(07:25):
But the other piece is going to beis going to be
that that consistent coachingthat we give someone.
Right.
When when there's a gap in performance.
Right.
It's our job to go to shinea light on that and just be like, hey,
you're supposed to be here,but you're here.
Hey, what's up?
And I understand that there could bemultiple answers to that, right?
(07:47):
It could be that, again,it's beyond someone's capacity.
It could be that they they don't have theresources to do what you're asking them.
It could be that there's external thingsgetting in the way.
You know, we quickly jump to well,are they not passionate?
Is this a motivation problem?
And most people that's where we go first.
Like the staff person didn't do this.
(08:08):
You know, obviously they didn't want to,but that may not be the case.
Sometimes it's a clarity thingand you just haven't been clear
on what you're asking them to do.
Mm hmm.
And so
is there
is there a point where a leader can caremaybe too much?
You know, and here's what I mean is that
(08:28):
as a leader,
we have to
understand our people.
We have to care about our people to be tobe a great leader or even a good leader.
I think
there's an aspect of understanding people,understanding
motivations, understandinghow to help get things done.
It's a combination of
(08:49):
a holistic understandingof how things come together,
how work gets done, and what makes peoplewant to get things done in terms
of sharing the vision, sharing the missionand there's that aspect of things.
And then there's alsothe human compassion, understanding
aspect of things where somebody mightjust be going through a tough time
(09:10):
and it's uncharacteristic of themto to underperform or not perform at all.
And there's
drawing that line versusdrawing the line of,
well, look, I mean, you've been providedthese opportunities and
you're being paid to not just work,but ultimately, especially in higher
performance settings such as my law firmor many other places that are beyond just.
(09:35):
Did you show up todayand did you punch the clock
and did you move this thingfrom this place to that place?
It's ultimately what results did you get?
And if the person isn'tquite getting the results, you know, at
what point do you as the leader say, look,
this is uncharacteristic of them,I need to do something a little bit more
(09:57):
because, you know, I understand thatthere's a human compassion
element to things versus,you know, making this
the strategic decision of,you know, as a leader,
you've also got to decide what's bestfor the team and the organization
and ultimately to say, look, you know,
unfortunately, we are going to have to letyou go and find someone else.
(10:19):
Yeah.
So back to the
initial question that you kick that offwith, can a leader care too much?
My answer to that is, no, they can't.
They can't care too much.
But what they can do is they can careand then not expect results.
And at the end of the day,all of us are in business to produce
some kind of resultso that we solve some kind of a problem
(10:40):
right at the end of the day,that's what it's all about.
But if you want to get the best
out of your people as a leader, yes,you got to care.
Definitely care about them, care for them.
At the same time, you got to you have toexpect them to produce results.
Right. When we're at work,
it's a different context than, let's say,family.
Family. It's likeyou need to care about your family.
(11:02):
Just because they're family doesn'talways work out great, but their family
work is not family, right?
And we're here for a reason,but a metaphor
that often resonates with people
when I am working with the organizationis this idea of a bank account.
So you think about a bank accountlike human relationships
(11:22):
or like a bank account.It's it's a value exchange.
Some people don't like
to think of it in this way,but it really is a value exchange.
So in a bank account,there's deposits and withdrawals
and we always want to make surethat the deposits
outnumber the withdrawals rightin your own bank account.
Otherwise you're overdrawn,you get fees, all of that.
Like you get penalizedfor being overdrawn.
(11:43):
It's no different in leadership.
So it's deposits and withdrawals.
What's a deposit?
Caring about staff, helping them grow,
recognizing great work, appreciating them.
Those are all depositskind of to the emotional bank account.
Well, what are the withdrawals?
Are things like holding peopleaccountable, expecting results,
(12:03):
challenging people.
Those are also thingsthat those are not bad or wrong.
That's part of work, right.
Doing those things.
I'll give you an example.
There was a manufacturing companythat hired me and they wanted me to go
in to one of their plantsand turn it into an example plant.
And one of the things they said was that
this plant
(12:24):
needs more accountability, like peoplehave to hold each other accountable.
Boy, they're not holding the standard.
And I said, okay, for sure,we can talk about that.
But that's not where we startbecause we just go in and
and let's go back to the bank account.
Let's just go inand let's just start making withdrawals.
We need more withdrawals here,which is right.
But if we don't
(12:44):
add more deposits at the same time,we're going to bankrupt the relationship.
And that's where people get to this place,where they're they'll say things like,
well, fine,I'll I'll come in and do my job,
but don't think I'm going to doone minute more.
Right?
That's when people take, in a sense,kind of ownership of the energy exchange
and they try to balance it back out.
So back to the original question aboutcan you care too much?
(13:08):
No, because those are two.
Can you deposit too much in your bankaccount?
No, But you have to make surethat you are also withdrawing.
And and here's the real challenge.
Prague is that if we were to take a or
all of us who are leaders, we're on somethere's a spectrum
that we're on where we favor resultsor we favor relationships.
(13:32):
Drivers and builders, right?
Everyone, somewhere on there.
I'm a little bitmore on the builder side, right?
And that's what made me good at ministry.
It was about relationships.
Well, neither is it is right.
It's just it's just how we are it.
Our goal is to try to get more towardsthe middle.
So drivers yeah they've they got to focusa little bit more on the people
(13:52):
side, the builderswho it's just natural for them
to care, just easily for them to care.
Well,they've got to make sure that they're
focused on results that they actually holdpeople accountable,
that they don't make excuses for people.
So this is why leadership is sucha great area to grow personally, Right?
So for me, my nature is a builder,which means I have to make sure
(14:16):
that I'm diligent on holding the lineand not making excuses
for people and expecting,yeah, you got to get the result.
Yeah. And love that.
So when it comes to leadership,
what are your thoughts onhow we can all become better leaders,
including, you know,you use the terms driver and builder.
(14:38):
How does
one figure out if they're a driver,a builder, or maybe something else?
And how do they go about decidingwhat aspect of leadership
they should really be focusedon improving to become a better leader?
Because it's it's such a broad term.
There's so many thingsthat somebody can do.
And so how does one decide where to start?
(15:01):
So if you think aboutif you think about human potential,
just even think about uslike both of us are business owners,
you and I can come to work.
And because we're the business owner,we're pretty engaged, right?
Like it's our companyand we're pretty invested in it
and we work over time and, you know,we don't even think of it that way.
But even you and I,who are the most engaged
(15:24):
somedays, we're not the most engagedfor our own standard, right?
Like some days you're not your best hour.
Maybe you are all the time for I'mnot always my best, right?
So sometimes I'm on all cylindersand sometimes I'm.
I'm less than I'll send cylinders.
Well, that's a gap, right?
There's a gap in the potentialthat I just brought to my own company.
(15:44):
Well, now, multiply that by howevermany staff you have and you have these.
And everyone has a gap.
Everyone has a range.
What leaders do?
Leaders are able to take peoplewhatever range they are and consistently
get people to bring more to work each day.
And so if I have if I have ten staffand I get them all
(16:07):
to bring 10% more that day,then it's Lilly.
Like I added an employee.
If you want to look at froma numbers perspective. So
what engages people?
Well, some of the things we already talkedabout, right, Making sure that we care
about our staff for sure,helping people grow,
recognizing great work when we see it,
(16:28):
but then also giving peoplewhat I call a mountain to climb.
So when you compare, when you take a look
at a lot of people's jobs, they representsort of a hamster wheel right?
People or you have treadmills,
you want people get on it,they work hard all day, they get off it.
And if you're on the treadmillthat you didn't go anywhere,
(16:50):
you just used up a lot of energyand a lot of jobs are like that.
What leaders do is leaders are ableto help give someone a mountain to climb,
whether that's a quarterlygoal, whether that's a KPI.
I mean, everyonein a company should have at least one KPI,
whether it's a projectthey're working on, basically
anything they're working on thatthey can show progress.
(17:13):
Because what happens for us as humans
is that when we have a goaland we're making progress,
it makes us feel happy,it makes us feel satisfied about the job.
So it's this wholefirst of all, the goal creates
striving right within us,and then striving creates progress.
Progress makes us happyand keeps the loop going.
(17:34):
Where we come in
as leaders then is is to be ableto give people feedback on their progress
and a great test for everyonewho's listening,
who's a leader isJust think of all your staff
that report to you, you know,could you tomorrow
at lunch, goand give them feedback on their progress.
And if you're like, how would I do that?
(17:56):
You know, like Jerry runs
the front desk,How would I give feedback on his progress?
Well, that'sjust sort of a red flag to show you that
he's missing a piece of the thingthat drives us
from a motivational activityto pursue something.
And so get Jerry at the front desk on somekind of a mountain, some kind of a goal.
(18:18):
And these are just some of theessential elements that you put together.
You care about people, right?
Help them grow, recognize them,and then give them something
to do where they can make progressand then give feedback on it.
And the feedback is either,hey, you're doing amazing or
you're not where you're supposed to be,What's up?
And that'swhere the standards come back in.
(18:40):
Yeah, I love that. James.
You know, in terms of
in terms of the myths
that people have about leadership,let's let's bust some of those.
So what do you thinkare some common misconceptions
about leadership, particularlyas you look throughout organizations,
(19:00):
meaning like it doesn't matterhow big or small they are.
This is a very typical mythor misconception about leadership.
That's a great
question that would make a great chapterin a book I've yet to write.
Parab But let's start with a couple,I would think One is
one isthat leaders need to know everything
(19:23):
and I think especially when peopleare younger, I'll speak for me.
When I first became a leader,
there was just so much I didn't knowand I felt like I had to know
to have the respect and followingof the people that I was with.
And so, you know, you fake the answer. You
just try to sound smart.
(19:44):
You get really defensive
if somebody challenges you becauseyour ego is so involved in those moments.
And it wasn't until I had a mentorand I was in a meeting one time
and someone fired off a question to himand he was like, Oh, I don't know.
I don't know the answer,but let me go find it out for you.
And at that moment,
(20:04):
it was like it freed me up to go, Oh,I, I don't have to always know the answer.
So you don't always have to knoweverything.
In fact, even if you do know everything,you shouldn't, you should not like you do
because you want to bring in your peopleto get their ideas.
You want them to contribute.
But that's how they stake a claimin your company, right?
(20:27):
If you're just giving directives allthe time, there's nothing for them to own.
So that would be one I think the otherone is going to be about,
well, I'll say this
Most of us come to leadership the same way
right?
Like you were good at something,you worked hard, people respected
you, trusted you, and they said, Hey,we're going to put you in management.
(20:49):
And what's was so bizarre
is that what got you into leadership
is notwhat's going to get you to the next stage.
And because what got you into
leadership was just who you wereand how you worked.
But now what gets you to the next levelis how well you move people.
It's just a completely differentskill set.
(21:12):
So for every leaderwho doesn't begin to devote
time to the mastery of the craftof moving people,
you're going to beyou're going to be missing out.
And for
business owners,you know, it's going to be the same thing.
We're all trying to grow our business
and the challenge for leadersis, you know, we're all busy, right?
(21:34):
Like, just let me get my work done
and then to know that allBut wait a minute, I part of my work
is making sure this employee,this employee,
this employee, that it's clear whatthey're doing, making sure this employee
are being developed and coach makingsure this employee, you know,
is is finding outwhy they didn't get that done.
It's it's just part of the role.
(21:56):
And I've had those days where I'm like,I hope my staff don't find me
so I can get stuff done right.
So it's just but then you realize, waita minute, my scoreboard is no longer me.
My scoreboard, whether I'm winning or not,
has to do with how engaged are my people.
And that's why the focus alwayshas to come back to people.
(22:17):
Yeah, I love that.
And you know,you were talking earlier about let's say,
the ranges that people can perform inand sometimes
it's on the higher end,other days on the lower end.
So what are your thoughts on getting
whether it's for yourself
and your team or your team
to the higherend of that performance metric
(22:39):
or that performance rangewhile still balancing
against burnout?
That's a great question.
And again, one of the reasonswhy you want a good relationship
with your staff so that you can reada little bit of those vital signs.
So to speak. Right.
I think most people
(23:00):
I think most people are not pushed
enough, and I'm going to qualify that.
I think most people are pushedin that they are insanely busy
and they have more work to do than theythey feel like they have time to do it.
So people are pushed in that way,but they're not pushed
in the way of You couldyou could do this better, right?
(23:21):
You could.
It's not like you can do more things,but it's like you could bring
more of your talents to your role.
And what holds so many people backis usually some kind of fear
or some kind of imposter syndrome,some kind of some kind of internal thing.
I think the leaders who are able toto understand that,
right,it's like you want to increase the output.
(23:43):
You want people to tap into strengthsand passions of their own
that they bring to the workplace,and then also help them
shed some of those things that limit them,that hold them back
from really doing that. So
and another way to do that is,
you know, I always like to ask anyonethat comes on our team, I'll ask them,
(24:07):
you know, what are your career goalsor what are your goals in life?
What are your career goals?
I even asked themwhat are their financial goals?
Because I'll say something like,
I want you to make the most here than thatyou've made anywhere.
Which then opens the door for me to say,
What's the mostyou've ever made in a month?
And then, regardless of what they say,I might say,
okay, well, we're not there yet,but how do we get you there?
(24:27):
Right?
So right from the beginning,I'm on their side and I'm
and I'm thinking, okay, well,
maybe we can tie in profit sharing for youon course sales or whatever it might be.
But what are your goals in life?
What are your career goals?
You know, what's your financial goalswhen it comes to career goals?
You know, I hadwe had a staff member and his career goal.
(24:48):
He wanted to start his ownbarbecue restaurant.
That was his dream.
So obviously he'snot going to stay with me forever.
And I always assume that no oneis staying with me forever, right?
Like everyone is just thatwe were crossing paths for a little while
and we're going to help each other.
But hewanted to start a barbecue restaurant, so.
All right.
(25:08):
Every time I was at a barbecue restaurant,I would like ask the manager
if I could see the smoker.I would take photos.
I would send it to him like,hey, here's the smoker in this place.
And just little things that showsthat I'm interested in his life.
But then also from a coaching perspective,when you know this
this person was dropping balls wasone of the clients or with the project,
(25:29):
I was able to talk to him to say like,you have got to get better at this skill
and if you want to run a restaurant,do you think that this will be okay?
And so I was able to tie his even growth
and development into something for him
so that it's not just doing my stuff.
It's like,no, you used to grow in this in your life
(25:50):
espec actually, because of what you wantto do, which I hope you go and do it
and I hope you're successful at it,but you have to be better.
And I think this is where
this is where I think a lot of leadersprobably leave a lot of people's
potential on the table is just finding outwhat makes them tick, what
(26:10):
what do they really want to do,and then call people
to be the best version of themselves.Is this your best?
I think you can do better.
Yeah, I really like that, James.
And you know, obviously it goes to showhow deeply you've thought about this
and how deeply you understandhuman nature and human motivation.
(26:33):
Let me share this with you.
It's a it's a perception of mineand maybe it's
a bias.
It's that
I think the challenge,the biggest challenge of modern day
is we're more comfortablethan we've ever been.
We don't even have to if we want.
(26:53):
We don't have to cook.
We don't even have to go outto pick up fast food.
We can just push a few buttonson our phone and it gets delivered to us.
Social media.
You don't have to go out,get dressed to meet with friends.
You don't even have to pick up a phonecall.
You can just scroll through on a phoneand see 100 or thousands,
if you want, of people's lives in moments.
(27:14):
And it really requires no effort.
And I think, you know,the biggest challenges
that in today's comfortable
society, dealing with discomfort
has become
much more strenuous than it's ever been,
including receiving feedback when
(27:35):
when somebody isn't performingto the level
that you believethey can to their own potential.
And so what thoughts doyou have on providing feedback?
Well, it's a two part question,as many of these have been,
is, one,do you agree or disagree with that?
And two, what what advice do you have
for leaders in today's modern agedealing with these these challenges of.
(28:00):
Look, I mean, the reality is we are,in fact the most comfortable
civilizationthat's ever lived on planet Earth.
And so we have more conveniencesthan kings had even a hundred years ago.
And that's the averageeveryday person as more conveniences.
So, you know, whatwhat insights do you have?
And again,do you agree or disagree with that?
(28:21):
Well, I agree that society, in a sensehas gotten more convenient.
We have more comfort.
And there's a part of thatthat makes us a bit softer.
So when you think about a company,
a company is going to riseor fall based on its culture.
And this is really importantto understand as a business owner,
because a lot of times it doesn't evenit's not even on our radar.
(28:42):
Our culture is just like now he'sgot to find more clients and you know,
we're going to recession like we got towe got to sell, sell, sell.
But at the end of the day,it's still a culture
and you think about a culture,but let's go to the biology for a moment.
If we take a culture medium, right,depends on the medium.
We can drop stem cells into one mediumand one petri dish
(29:02):
and it becomes and they all become livercells, change the medium.
Those same stem cells become skincells, right?
Like what they becomeis dependent on the medium.
And it's the same waywhen we build a company, right?
What are we dropping people into?
Because any of us who've workedin different companies for a while,
you understandthere's some strong cultures
you probably workedin, maybe some cultures, but that culture
(29:25):
actually impactswhat you bring to the to the stage. So
if you want to build a high performanceculture, though,
and I'm going to define that as that'sbringing the best out of everybody
and where we can speak truthfullyto each other and people aren't
triggered and defensiveand they can take feedback,
(29:47):
then high performing cultures.
In a sense,
there's a foundation of of whata high performance culture is.
There's two thingsthat are the foundation.
The one is psychological safety, right?
Where the company works hard at,where people feel it's safe to be me,
it's safe to contribute,
it's safe to make a mistake, in otherwords, is not held over me.
(30:09):
And we can learn from it.
And it's safe to challenge that.
Last one's the hard one,right? Safe to challenge.
But where there's a culturewhere I can speak up, I can tell my boss,
I don't think this is the best decision
right at the end of the day,it's the boss decision.
But I can speak up and say,I disagree with you on that. So
any company that'sserious about creating a high performance
(30:31):
culture, they have to work collectivelyto get there, right.
To be psychologically safe.
The other piece of thatis a growth mindset among the individuals.
So in other words,
let's say I'm an employee in a companyand the employee in the company's like,
yes, we're going to become
we're going to try to be morepsychologically safe, Great.
But nope, no company is going to do itperfectly.
(30:52):
People are going to make mistakes.
Someone's going to get stressedout, snap at someone, whatever.
It's not going to be perfect.
What covers that isthen me taking ownership
of having a growth mindsetthat what's most important to me
is to be the best version of myselfto grow, that I'm consistently growing,
and that when I have a growth mindsetand this is based on Kel Dweck,
(31:14):
some of her researchthat when I get feedback
that it's going to be
welcomed because it's helping me,I still might get triggered.
I have to remind myself,wait a minute, this is helping me.
So here's how these two thingswork together.
Then when it comes timefor when you're consistently sending out
(31:34):
that message as a boss, as a businessowner, as a leader on your team,
are going to havea psychological shaped culture.
And I want everyoneto adopt a growth mindset.
I mean, who who would it be behind that?
Right?
But then when you start to have
when you start to get feedbackand if someone starts getting defensive,
you can call them back to that commitmentof a growth mindset.
(31:57):
Like, in other words,hey, I'm not attacking you here,
I'm just trying to point something out.
I might notI might not be doing it perfectly.
I just need you to hear the message.
And I'll have even said to some staff,
like when we have to have a hard talk,I might say, Hey, I need that.
I need to have a conversation with you.
I'm going to need you to really stepinto a growth mindset here.
(32:18):
Right? That's the flat.
That's the warning sign.
We're going to havea difficult conversation.
And I really need you to to takeon a growth mindset and listen to me.
Right.
And then I'm going to speak my truth.
So it greases the wheels a bit.
And then, of course, I mean,they may not even agree with what I say,
and that's safe to challenge as well.
Like we need to be able to have that.
(32:39):
But at the end of the day,it's still going to come back down to
is whatever we're doingproducing results, right?
Are we fulfilling our mission?
That's the that's the that's our NorthStar and our values are the compass.
So does that make senseas I explain that, that
it's kind of a long wayto answer your question about how do we
how do we give feedbackwithout people being triggered while we
(33:01):
we go deeperand we create a culture of safety,
but also growth mindset and that justhas to become an expectation,
which is why we can have one on oneswith our employees to say,
Hey, where are you growing?
What are you working onin terms of your own personal growth?
And if you work here,you have to work on your as well.
It's just part of what we do.
(33:23):
And then also leaders lead the wayby saying, Hey, here's what I'm learning,
or I have a coach and I coach said thisand I made a mistake here.
I screwed up here.
Here's what I learned from it, though.
And making it okay to not be perfect
actually then brings bringsmore of people to the workplace.
That makes perfect sense.
James And so if people want to learna little bit more about leadership,
(33:48):
you know, they can certainly pick upyour current book 9 minutes on Monday.
And I know you've got a new booklaunching in a few months and love to hear
you talk a little bitabout that, the call to climb and
tell tell the listeners,if you would as well in a where
where they can either get your booksor learn more about you, your leadership
or if they want to, to work together
(34:10):
to improve their own leadershipor their organization's leadership.
How can they do that?
Appreciate that. Yeah,they can go to James Robbins dot com.
We have courses there, workshops happeningall the time.
You can just see if there's somethingthat appeals to you, whether it's helping
having one on being more productive,learning to delegate better.
So lots of things there.
A new book,The Call to Climb is coming out in August.
(34:34):
I'm really excited about it.
But it's it's not so much a leadershipbook as it is.
You becoming a best version of yourself.
It's written in a story format.
Like I said off air, it'ssort of The Alchemist meets Carl Jung
and dealingwith just realizing that our lives
are the product of the patternsin the programing that we've had.
And if we really want toif we really want to step into
(34:57):
the best version of ourselves,we have to realize what we're up against.
And it's often internal.
But when we do start to see the patternsdriving it,
we're able to make better choices.
And that usually takes us to the place
that we're trying to get to.
I love that.I love that. James, thank you for that.
And thank you for joining me today.
(35:18):
Prague, nice to be on yourshow. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, absolutely.
And to the listeners,I hope you got a lot out of this.
And, you know,James has been fantastic in terms
of sharing his knowledge,his wisdom, hard earned over the years.
And hopefully
some of that wisdomis giving you some insights
and help you on the pathto becoming a better leader
(35:41):
because that's one of the thingsthat makes entrepreneurship
so great, is it's it'snot just about yourself.
It's not just about building a business,but at each step of the way,
I personally believethat true entrepreneurship is not
is about improving yourself and creatinga great organization so that you can help
other people and impactother people's lives and be of service
(36:05):
not just to clients,but also to employees, and create
a great culture and organizationso that everything lives symbiotically.
And James, again, thank you for sharingsome of these insights because I know
that I have gotten severalgreat ideas from you today
that I am going to implementinto into my law firm
(36:26):
essentially today.
I'm going to take a breakafter this and start taking some notes on
exactly what I want to dobased on this conversation.
So, again, thank you for being here.
Thank you for sharing your wisdomand appreciate you being on.
Appreciate for all.
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