Factors of Leadership with Ninez Piezas-Jerbi

Ninez Piezas-Jerbi NINEZ PIEZAS-JERBI is former Chief of the KM Section of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland.  She is also holder of the CILIP Chartership in KM.  After more than 30 years of service at the WTO, she retired in July 2022 and is now based in the USA. She has an Executive Master’s Degree in Positive Leadership and Strategy from the IE School of Human Sciences and Technology in Madrid and a Bachelor of Science degree in Statistics from the University of the Philippines.  Ninez continues to share her expertise and experience in the workplace as KM Consultant and Executive/Professional Development Coach (ICF ACC). She is also a certified Kundalini Yoga teacher (500HR) that promotes physical and mental vitality towards Transformational Leadership.  More information on Ninez can be found on her website, nineznow.com.   Sponsored by Schedule an EOS 90 Minute Meeting with Stas Balanevsky Request a free 90 Minute Meeting with Stas Balanevsky to learn how your business can benefit from EOS.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
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This is Edwin k Morris,
and you are about to embark on thenext Pioneer Knowledge Services because
you need to know a digitalresource for you to listen to folks

(00:21):
share their experience and knowledgearound the field of knowledge management
and nonprofit work.
This episode is broughtto you by STAs Balinski,
a certified e o s implementerbased in Buffalo, New York.

(00:45):
Get a grip on your business with e o s.
Hello.
My name is Nina. Nina PZ Derby.I currently live in Ashburn,
Virginia. I used to live inEurope, but now I'm in the S of A.
The thing I have learned is you can'tcontrol everything. You do your best,
but you, you do what's within yourcontrol and let God do the rest.

(01:08):
Last book I read was The Heart ofLaser-Focused Coaching by Marian Franklin
and also Kundalini Yoga forSelf-Care and Caregivers.
These are important to me because I thinkcoaching is a way for people to find
out what their treasures are, becauseit's not just about giving your treasures,
but letting them discovertheir own treasures.
And the second book isabout self-compassion.

(01:30):
We do a lot in our lives helping people,
but usually we take for granted howwe take care of ourselves. The topic,
I can talk for hours. Hmm. Yogaleadership, servant leadership,
KM Coaching, and how they all helpeach other. I've worked for 33 years,
the last 30 years in the field ofstatistics, but the last five of them,
or last six of them was in KM andleadership. Uh, I love to sing.

(01:54):
I love to listen to music.
I am inspired when I do listen tomusic and I stay connected to people by
listening to their stories and most ofall asking how I can be of service to
them. If I were stranded an island,I wish I would be strided my husband,
, 'cause I wouldn't be able tomake a fire by myself. , uh,
a mirror and water.
Oh, the mirror for like signalingaircraft. Is that what Oh.

(02:16):
Yeah. Obviously I just learnedthat either as well. Um,
create value by helping others discovertheir own strengths and treasures.
And the absolute best advice I got fromsomebody was this. We're two quotes.
One is, even if nothing changes,if I change, everything changes.
And the second one is feedback is asmuch about the one who is giving it as it

(02:37):
is about who it's.
For. Nina, please define forthe audience what leadership is.
Leadership for me is influence,
like what John Maxwellused to say or still says.
Leadership is influencednothing more, nothing less.
And I think that's very true. Andthere's a quote that I like so much.
If you're a leader andyou have no followers,
you're just like somebodywho's taking a walk. .

(02:57):
I thought that was so funny becauseif, if you lead and nobody follows you,
you're not really a leader. Thatmeans you can't influence anybody.
Yeah. But you, nobody everargues. It's great, you know? Oh,
no pushback ever. Every idea is perfect.
So I love that. I love that quote .
But.
It's true. I think it's influenced. Let's.
Go down the road of wheredoes leadership come from?

(03:19):
Is it a trainable traitor is it just inborn?
Well, you need to, well, allleaders are born, of course,
'cause everybody is born, but .
But I think you need to acquireleadership skills. It's all about, um,
connecting with people, learningabout them, knowing about them.
'cause it is about people. It'spersonal too. Leadership is personal.

(03:39):
Very personal.
Do you find that a lot of folks fallinto leadership positions that are not
skilled at all?
Yeah. I find that peoplewho are in leadership PO positions where fall into them
because of their technical expertise,not because of their leadership skills.
Yeah.
So that's a, that's kind of a painfulhurdle sometimes. Mm-hmm. ,
everybody is kinda liketrying to keep things moving,
but then you got that influencepiece that doesn't come easy.

(04:03):
You can negatively influence people,probably easier than you can positively.
Where does the training come from?
If you were talking and mentoringa young person or an old person,
doesn't really matter. A, a person.
What would you give them for advicefor the things they should be aware of
becoming a leader?

(04:24):
I think the first thing they shouldlearn is emotional intelligence, empathy,
self-regulation, socialskills, collaboration.
It's all about people. And tobe able to work with people,
you need to know how to control youryourself, your mind, and your body,
and your emotions and your thoughts.
You first have to bethe c e o of your beta,
which is something that I got from ateacher of mine. Beta meaning behaviors,

(04:48):
emotions, thoughts, actions.
Walk me some more downthat trail of this beta.
Well,
if you are supposed to influence somebodyand you get all rattled because just
that one person gives you, throwsyou a trigger. Yeah. Then you know,
everything goes down a drain. You can't,
you explode and nothinghappens because you fight.
And then the objective doesn't happen.What you want it to do together.

(05:10):
So doesn't, doesn't happen becauseyou need to work together. Tell.
Me again, the beta acronym.
Behavior, emotions, thoughts, actions.If you have emotional intelligence,
you're able to regulate your own emotions.
You're able to regulate your thoughtsand you're able to have empathy,
which is very important. It'snot all about you all the time.

(05:31):
You need to know what the other person'sperspective is and what the other
person's feeling to be able to understandit and know what to do for the person
and work together.
It's interesting you talk aboutthese facets of leadership,
and I review the latestof history of political
figures, and I wonder wheredid they skip that lesson?

(05:51):
Where did most political peoplejust not even get anything towards
this?
When I was young, I neverreally learned about leadership.
It wasn't part of the, theschool curriculum. I mean,
at least during my time now, thereare courses about leadership mm-hmm.
, but during mygeneration, nothing, not, not at all.
If only there was at the time, Iwould've taken it. But I found out later.

(06:12):
You gotta wonder,
where's those institutions that shouldbe practicing or at least making people
aware of leadership skills. I wasin the military. You get that a lot.
It's reinforced over andover again about leadership.
I think the Boy Scouts have.
Oh yeah. Well, I.
Yeah. Scouting Boy Scouts PeaceCorps. When during my childhood,

(06:32):
it was about church. When youvolunteered in church, helping others,
serving others, youknow, leading ministries,
then you get a dose ofleadership or you're,
you get into an opportunity to practice.
Leader,
you're basically getting your toes in thewater to start seeing all the triggers
and traps and,
and things that you need towork with in this new paradigm.

(06:52):
So let's talk about organizations.
Have you ever seen the opportunity wheresomeone that's not in the leadership
position is actually leading? You know? Yeah. What,
what do you do in that circumstance?Right? So somebody that's in middle,
in the middle of the rungs of theladder is just a natural. They're,
they're either passionateabout the whatever,
or they're just knowledgeableor they just have followers.

(07:15):
They influence just by being them.
Does that end up being acompeting situation for the person that's actually in
the position that's supposed to beleading? Or does it just happen naturally?
I mean, is it just a natural occurrence?That shouldn't be a big deal.
It shouldn't be a big deal because thatperson who is that natural leader in the
middle level will have the smarts enoughto be able to work with that leader who

(07:38):
is actually in a position to lead andwork with them and bring out the best of
this person, this this officialleader who has the title. Yeah.
But I really think that a leaderneeds to lead from where he is,
no matter he or she is. Yeah.No matter what title you have,
you can be a leader without a title. Does.
That create a competitive workplace?Is there a competition for that?

(08:00):
For the people who are inpositions? It could be very,
it could make them very insecure becauseit makes them irrelevant and nobody
follows them. Or they're onlyfollowed because they have the title.
The ones who are really the naturalleaders are the ones people really love to
follow. And that could be, thatcould be a threat. If they were wise,
they would work together.
I hear that.
I think most people would reactnegatively if they saw that happen

(08:23):
in their command or in theirstructure. And, but see,
that goes back to if they hadgood emotional intelligence,
they would see the big pictureand say, oh, well that's great.
I'll just fishtail in with this personand we'll do this all together. Perfect.
You know, it's complimentary,not competitional or is that a word? Competition.
It's not competitive. I agree. Whatis it that makes people follow?

(08:47):
What is the thing that people standup and say, yeah, I'll do that.
Trust. Trust that they're not therefor their personal interests. It's,
it's service to others.
If they sense that you have personalintentions, that you have an agenda,
nothing's gonna happen. Okay. Allright. So I think that's the, the key.

(09:08):
If they can see through you andwhat your intentions are, then,
but on the other hand,
if you are somebody who's really workingfor the organization or you care about
the people, then you say,jump and they say hi.
Yeah. Yeah. Well that, that goes backto your concept of thoughts and actions.
Right. If people see that you'reliving your truth, then it's easy to,

(09:28):
it's transparent. Right. Andthat's, that's really the essence of gaining trust,
is that if you can showyou've got nothing to hide,
then that's easier to connect.
Agree. Agree. It's not reallyjust about charisma too.
It's somebody people feel safe with.People aren't threatened by some people.
If you're not somebody who, who,

(09:51):
who is a threat to people who willalways have their concerns in your mind,
then yeah. I think that's theperson who they will follow.
We've kinda walked the dog allaround leadership and traits.
How does this translate to theworld of knowledge management?
Well, knowledge management is all aboutchange. And people do not like change.
And the first thing they say, at leastin my experience, they'll, they'll say,

(10:14):
gimme one reason why I should follow you.
. The normal response is, 'causeI said so that's why. Yeah. Right.
, and if your answershould be, it's because it's,
it's for the good of not just yourunit, but the whole organization.
And trust me,
it's not because I wanna have a bonusor a promotion or I wanna be popular.
It's not about that. So if theytrust you, then they know that your,

(10:37):
your intention is pure. You need,you need to make them feel that.
Not just see it, but feel it.That's why trust is very important.
And you need somebody who knows how tohandle conflict very well, of course.
Or resistance very well.
Because there is going to be alot of clashes of priorities.
People are territorial.
So you need somebody who knows how tobe secure in himself and thinking of the

(11:00):
other at the same time. Well, that.
Sounds easy.
Yeah, it does. It does.It does. Sound easy.
Does sound easy. But it'snot, it can be very difficult.
But that's why I say that. It's,
if you're somebody whooozes with safety trust,
I'm comfortable. My door is open,
tell me what your problem isand I will try to help you.
And not somebody who's like, okay,I'm here to tell you what to do.

(11:23):
Then it's much likely that theywill approach you and say, listen,
I have a problem, can you help me? Orif you're somebody who's willing to say,
I have a problem and I know youcan help me, could you help me?
You're humble enough to say,I don't know all the answers,
but I know you have the answers to myproblem and to other people's problems.
Could you help me? And can you help us?
Then if you have the security to say that,

(11:45):
if you feel secure enoughto say that to others,
the vulnerability to showyou don't know everything,
then you'll be a successfulcam person. Advocate.
Advocate. Yeah. In your last employee,when you were doing knowledge management,
what was the key ingredientto what you saw there in
a positive and or a negative?How Camm was doing there? I.

(12:08):
Think the key ingredient was reallyspeaking their language and also involving
them, because Cam was such an abstractconcept to many colleagues. Yeah.
And so you first had to explain to them,they didn't like jargon. They said,
what is that? That's justprivate sector. People say, yeah.
So speak to me in language that Iunderstand. The first resistance was,

(12:29):
I don't have time to do this. Thisis, I know it's different, but Yeah.
But I don't have time. Ihave my own ways of doing.
Exactly.
But if you involve theminstead of just telling them,
then the likelihood that they'll getengaged is much higher because they
understand more if they're your, well.
It goes back to your wordof, uh, km advocate. Right.
So you have to be a bit of asalesperson in that regard because

(12:52):
you have to, going backto leadership traits,
you have to build transparency and trustand all those things that make things
work.
Yeah. Although sometimes whenyou say salesperson ,
sometimes salespeople dowhatever it takes to sell.
You don't want to be like that either.
You want somebody who'sI'm selling something,

(13:12):
but only that's what's relevant to you.I'm not there to just sell it. Yeah.
May.
Maybe marketing is a better term.
Yeah. , you're.
A marketer. Well, and really, Imean, your marketing, the benefit,
your marketing, the value,
you're establishing a case to whereyou're trying to win hearts and minds
of people to say, oh, I see,I see that. Okay, you got me.

(13:35):
All right. Because if you just putout, you can lead a horse to water,
but you can't make 'em drink.Mm-hmm. . Yeah.
The idea that people stopjust short because they either
don't trust, they didn't get thecommunication well, they don't understand.
There's no comprehension,there's no value proposition to,
to get 'em over the fence. Butonce the culture adapts and adopts,

(13:57):
and I've seen this happen where insteadof trying to do an enterprise rollout of
a KM related project, theyjust do the onesie twosies.
They try to do a groundswellof grassroots approach
to get the culture on board,let the culture pull it in,
give them some ownership, givethem some agency to participate.

(14:21):
And, and then once theystart seeing value,
then they become youradvocate for the benefit.
I agree with you. 'cause that'show we try to do that too.
But I think you need to do it both ways.
You need support from the topand support from the bottom.
They meet each other in the middle.Oh, okay. Because it's true,
the people underneath won't follow ifthe big people don't practice what you

(14:43):
preach. And if there's nomoney. And if they don't,
they don't have the infrastructure thatallows them to take the time and the
resources to be able, able topractice what we're preaching,
then they won't do it becauseit's, it's added work for them.
What's in it for me? And it'strue what, what KM schools say.
It's really about what's in it forme. If, if that work helps my work,

(15:04):
then I'll help.
You. Yeah. Once it becomes anadditional duty, it's not so much fun.
One thing that I did notice about myformer place of work is that they really
are very committed to thework that they're doing.
So if it's going to help how they dotheir work, well, they will be on board.
What is the best practice?
Or give us an example of somethingthat was in this rollout.

(15:25):
And it sounds like you're in partof a km institutional rollout,
by the sounds of it. How did you connectthe top and bottom simultaneously? Um,
what was your tactic? Well,
what you just talked us through was oftrying to make an Oreo sandwich out of
this and get it from both sides.
Well, first I really had to talk tothe top first. I, I, I talked to the,

(15:46):
to our director general. I talked tothe deputies and I already primed them,
or I already asked them what theythought, which, and they, they agreed,
but they always said, well, it'll dependon everybody else. If it were up to us,
it's okay. But you just have tofigure out how to do it within,
how to properly institutionalizeit. That was the next step.

(16:06):
But to be able to get bothlevels involved, yeah.
It was important to get outsidepeople who know what KM was.
And when they would talk,
I would get a high level person and alow level person in the conversation,
and they would talk about aspecific topic that relates to a,
a specific game topic and howit's related to the work. Mm-hmm.

(16:28):
a core topic, a corework program in the organization.
And there it made more sensebecause it was more real.
And it wasn't just some theory,
some concept that we were tryingto impose on people. Yeah.
And if you get people involved, theywill understand what you're, meaning,
what you're talking about.
Did you approach it the idea of likea learning objective and this is a
learning, we're gonna,we're gonna teach people?

(16:49):
No,
it was more about raisingawareness because people didn't abso they absolutely,
absolutely did not know what it was.They thought it was just a buzzword,
and they said, what is this?
So you had to demystifyit and make it real.
Correct. Apply it to theirown work. Yeah. Well.
And here again, that,
that brings it home andshows how real it can be.

(17:11):
Sometimes that isn't a markthat gets missed, you know,
if you don't show value,
you got all this power under thehood, can do 160 miles an hour,
turbocharged, la la, la, all this stuff.But you never get outta first gear.
Yeah. Well, you got all this potential,but I don't wanna go that fast.

(17:31):
Well, because it is all about people.
People take the time toprocess something that's new.
You can't just shove it ininto them, you know? Yeah.
You need to just slowlylet them understand,
translate it to theirreal world every day.
Did you use peermentoring in this rollout?
We did more bilateral talks. Tell.
Me about that.
Our team would talk to certain groupsof people, certain occupational groups.

(17:54):
Ah, we talked to team leadersof core projects because, uh,
we started with the most importantprojects first. Oh, okay.
Because those are the ones wherethe organization's known for you.
Get well, that, and you, youprobably got the highest risk.
Absolutely. Right.
The highest risk of knowledge lossanyway. Right. So let's talk about that,
because I think that's anotherthing that is not a holistic,

(18:16):
natural thing that organizations shoulddo, which is do an environmental scan,
figure out and triage what'scritical, what's not, and,
and figure that out. And then thatgives you a plan of attack. You know,
it gives you an, uh, an ideaof where's our biggest risk.
No, absolutely. The challenge we hadthere was teams usually have their,

(18:38):
their usual way of work,and if it already works,
they don't wanna changeit anymore. Exactly.
So there's still a lot of gettingthis idea of getting buy-in,
and that's why it, it really helps toget buy-in from the very top to say,
you know what, we don't wantorganization to just work today.
We want it to be running and smooth,
like an well oiled machine 10 years fromnow. So we can't just be good today.

(19:00):
We need to be really like turboed up,
so we need to put it up a notch.
Let's stick with the carthing. You're tuning it up,
you're tuning up the performancejust like you would an automobile,
but you're doing it foran organization and,
and it kind of takes the individual outof it when you can couch it. Like, Hey,
we're doing, this is forbetter performance, period.

(19:23):
It's not my pet project. It's notthe next thing that we're chasing.
This is a transformationallong-term investment.
Yeah. It's just reallydirection. Where do you wanna go?
Where do you wanna be10 years from now? And,
and sometimes we're so caught up with thedaily work that we forget to have some
kind of foresight. What is itthat we'd like to be, like,

(19:45):
what do we wanna be like10 years from now we're,
what do we wanna be doing instead of,we can't just be doing this now, like,
you know, in 10 years. Well, hopeful,hopefully. So for 10 years. So.
Hopefully, hopefully.
Well, at least the world will havechanged by then. So we have to be ready.
We have to adapt.
But because people are overworked,
they don't have the time toask those questions as well.
Not everybody can see the strategic view.

(20:08):
So I liken it as a old soldier,we had to dig fighting positions,
commonly referred to as a foxhole. Thething with the, once you're in a pit,
you can only see about 200 meters.Maybe it depends on a terrain.
But if you elevate that to the nextechelon up and the next echelon up,
that visibility,

(20:28):
think of it like you'retactical to strategic in an organization, the higher up,
the farther you can see.
And the idea is you need to see what'sout there to know what's coming.
Same concept with an organization. Ijust don't think enough organizations,
there's nobody in the organizationthat's like the future person, the,

(20:49):
like the future proofer mm-hmm. guy. Right.
And I think they're missing themark on that, as we all know,
trying to keep up is tough. Yeah.
Especially.
Now, just in the technological changes.
And I would be scared to death asa large organization to say, oh,
we're gonna buy this system and hopeit works because it could be out of
business in five years. It couldbe something totally different.

(21:10):
Something could be interjected into themarket that totally makes that obsolete.
Ah, that's, it's painful.
And that's why I think the, the role,
part of the responsibility of theKM team is to put it out there.
This is good today, but what about fiveyears from now, 10 years from now? And,
and sometimes the role of the teamis not to actually do it. Yeah.
But to just throw the question and letpeople in their units do the work. Yeah.

(21:33):
But put it in their consciousness,
their mindset that we can't just becomplacent with what we have today.
What got us here won't get us there.. So isn't that a famous,
famous quote by somebody? I.
Somebody said it. I like it. That's thefirst time I've heard it. I like it.
What got us here won't get us there. Yeah.
Yeah. And look, now we have chat, G P T,
and then Microsoft has its ownequivalent and all that stuff. Uh,

(21:57):
people will have to lookfor new jobs. Well, out of.
The world of km the three main componentsare people, process, and technology.
Where do you find your mostpassionate in those three.
People? Because.
'Cause I, I find this kind of afunny answer for a statistician,
because they like digits and numbersand spreadsheets and the things that

(22:19):
go.
It's funny you asked that.
The only reason I got intostatistics was because I was,
I happened to be good in math whenI was younger. And my mother said,
you're good in math. Okay, take statisticsout. That's what your sister took.
. So you do that as well.And that'll get you a job. Your.
Your mom saw the future.
Moms are smart. You know, the firstthing is that'll get you a job later on.

(22:40):
The reason why I got into KM was becausestatistics are important. That's true.
But it's a lot of numbers.If you don't interpret them,
nobody will get themessage. Yeah. So that,
that means they have to be packagedin a way that people understand.
And that's what, that's where I gotinto km. I had to know how to do that.
That user experience to whereconsumption of content is easy.

(23:02):
Right. And people are interesting.
We all have different understandingsof things. Some people are very visual,
some people are very spatial.Some people are all numbers.
Some people are all words. So youreally need to know how to read people.
And also decisions are emotionalbased, emotion based. It,
because no matter how muchfacts and figures you have,

(23:23):
sometimes you just feel like,nah, it does not feel right.
I'm not gonna do this. Even thoughI have all the figures that say,
this is how it is, it's sometimes a, afeeling or a, a gut that tells you that,
no, we're not doing this. Right.So it's not always numbers.
They, they help.
It's about the people behind it. Yeah.
The numbers help providedecisional material. Uh, they,
they 0.1 way or the other or nowhere.

(23:45):
They give the abilityto help make decisions.
And the easier you can makethat editable or consumable,
the better off for everybody.
Because if you gotta throw a chart upand then you gotta spend a half hour
explaining what the chartis, you've already lost them.
Absolutely. And also, so.
It's the same as km, it's the same as km.
, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's.

(24:05):
The same thing.
And that's why you need to be some kindof a catalyst. Mm-hmm. ,
, the, the ones who make thedecisions. It's not the numbers. Yeah.
It's the people .
So if that person who's makingdecision doesn't like you,
if that person has some,has a grudge against you,
or is a grudge against your department,no matter how good your argument is,
it's not gonna go. So , you needto, you need to cover that part as well.

(24:27):
You're going back to thatemotional intelligence again.
I, I think it's a reality. , it's.
Everywhere. Yeah.
The model of 1940 and howorganizations operated and
families operated, I'm generalizing,very authoritarian, very, oh,
boom, boom, do this.
And that whole societal shift to where

(24:50):
we went from software developersmaking the user interface to somebody
saying, you know what? That's horrible.
We need to make somebody like an artistbe able to interpret and be a catalyst
for what you're trying to say, orinter interface and make it better.
So all of these opportunitiesare recent history.

(25:10):
And it's exciting to see that the,it's not just a workplace, it's,
it's everywhere. The,
the expectation of people has shiftedto how they're gonna interface
the world.
Absolutely. Another thingthat's important is focus.
It also depends whereyou put your focus on.
Because that will determinewhere you put your money.

(25:30):
That's what will tell youwhere you value things.
If you value your people a lot, youwill be investing on their training,
on their skills, theiremotional wellbeing, their, you know, their capacity to,
to build things and to, to becreative. But if you don't,
and if you're just focusing on resultswithout really taking care of the people
underneath who do it, youneed to find a balance. What.

(25:53):
Would you suggest to a leader to addresshow to address that? How, I mean,
a leader can't do everything.So how do you triage,
how do you assess your risk lookingat that? Like you just said,
with the risk of turnover, burnout,
people not actuallycarrying what they do there,
where you're lost thatoomph of the people.

(26:15):
How do they assess that? Risk.
Morale is a, is a factor also,
how much people get involved If there'sa, a meeting, do they all show up?
If there's a town hall meeting?Is everybody interested? Yeah.
Or there's a lot of grievances.
That's another indicator if there's alot of harassment and things like that.
And also just engagement events. Ithink people take that for granted.

(26:37):
If the people are happy, they will goto length to make the mandate work,
make the organizationa well-oiled machine.
It sounds like it's ameasurement of engagement,
because we've all seen workplaceswhere you've got somebody that's 100%
disengaged. Oh, many .
Many.
. I'm here for the paycheck,I'm going home in four hours. You know?

(26:59):
Yeah.
The benefits. The benefits, yeah.
Some organizations can't firepeople for being disengaged.
So that's a challenge for leadership.Here, again, as the catalyst,
sometimes you have to be thecatalyst for good of the morale of
your folks. That's not an easy task.
In my former employer, I,in former workplace, I,

(27:23):
I created these employee networks wherewe focused on seeing people as human
beings first, before employees.We all have a common thing.
And that we're all human beings. We allhave feelings, we all have families,
we all have health issues. Weall have parents who might,
we have, some of us have children or somefamily member we need to take care of.
So if we find commonalities in thatregard and share our problems there,

(27:47):
we'll be able to support eachother. And once that bond is formed,
if you talk about work, it'll be so mucheasier because, oh, I know this person,
this person is hurting.
And I'll think twice before I say a badword about him in a meeting. You know,
that sort of thing. I knowwhat he's going through.
He's going through his bipolar orhis wife's bipolar, I don't know.
That sort of thing. You.
Start to look at the underlyingparts. Well, when you said that about,

(28:10):
we look at people as humansor human beings, it's common,
at least in Western organizations,that humans are an asset.
They're like a computer, they'relike a vehicle. You know,
you do a little maintenance, youplug them in, boom, let's go.
Let's get the job done. And I think mostorganizations function that way. Now,
in the military, the common threadwas, you're all replaceable.

(28:32):
Because we are,
we work in a very large organizationthat has a high expectation.
You may not be there in the morning.
Everybody is cross-trainedto fill in the next
gap. We are Legos in that respect,
because we're all disposablein that framework.
And I think part of the problemwith organizations, there is a,

(28:56):
there's a bit of that expectation.This job was open when we hired you.
You leave, we'll hiresomebody else. You know?
So there's a transactional componentI think that needs to be kind of
tuned up a little bit.
I don't understand. What doyou mean? How so tuned up?
How to get to get itfrom the transactional relationship of an asset to a

(29:17):
functional relationship as a humanon that emotional intelligence.
So the organization has toexhibit emotional intelligence, not just the people.
Right.
Right. Which means that it's,they should have a policy,
an HR policy that gives importance to,
to the wellbeing of their people.Because they are the most, they,

(29:37):
they are the most important assetof the organization. The, the,
the creativity comes from the people.The ideas come from the people.
The work comes from the people.
And they represent theorganization to other people.
And the members are people too. Themembers behind the organization,
the ones who pay mm-hmm. for the organization are people too. So,
and they're basically yourclients, your stakeholders. So.
You've given us lots tothink about today. And, uh,

(30:00):
what would be your advice to somebodygoing forward around leadership and
emotional intelligence?
Humility is a big traitthat's very difficult to.
Practice. Meaning what? Tellme, tell me what that means.
Yeah. You don't know everything.You may be a, a leader.
You may be somebody who's gotthe title, who's got the name,

(30:20):
who's got the salary. .If you want to achieve something,
sometimes you can't do it alonebecause you don't know everything.
And the sooner that you show vulnerabilitythat you don't know everything,
that you need to harness somebody else'sexpertise to be able to do a better job
of that, of getting that objective,this mandate that you're charged with,
then the better. Because thefaster you get to the target,

(30:44):
it's not just enough to be a leader.
You have to be somebody whoinspires others to step up to plate,
to also be leaders where they are.
And I think that's what leaderstoday who are in the higher ranks,
maybe not all of them do that. Theyjust, they're just there because, oh,
it's very, you know, it's veryprestigious to be in my position.
This is my job to, to havethe nice decisions. But I'm.

(31:06):
I'm very important.
. Right? But at the sametime, I have a responsibility.
I can't do everything 'causeI don't see everything.
So I have a responsibility toinspire those people under me,
to delegate them to do things inmy place, because I don't see the,
the level of detail that they're doing.
What's your definitionof knowledge management?
I always like that, um,phrase of knowing. Hang on.

(31:27):
Knowledge management is knowing what youhave and knowing what other people need
and bringing them together and lettingpeople have what they need in a way that
they can understand it.
So as a KM person,
you're saying that the definitionof KM is to be the kind
of the connector and instigatorand translator and, and.

(31:50):
Broker.
Broker.
Hmm. Yeah. Somebody who can connectthe dots. Yeah. This person needs this,
this person has this, they should work.
Together. Well, that requires a lot ofawareness there. What you're just saying.
Another leadership skill. Mm-hmm. self-awareness,
another emotional intelligence skill.
And also knowledge managementalso starts with knowledge. It's,
that's why leadership is important.Personal leadership is important.

(32:14):
You can't lead others ifyou can't lead yourself.
So do you practice yourown knowledge management?
Your personal knowledge management?
Try reflecting is important, youknow? Yes. , and it's,
but it's hard to find time to reflect. Do you notice that? You do.
You do. You do. But you don't sit downand say, now why was that happening?
Well, usually that's the firsthour of trying to go to sleep,
is the reflection of all repeatingeverything over and thinking, well.

(32:36):
No, I, I can't do that before Isleep. 'cause I'll never sleep.
Sleep.
Never. I need to shut thebrain down to be able to sleep.
You should do that in the morning.In the morning over coffee.
Well, at least that'smy routine. You know,
I grab a coffee and sit on a porchand think, and it's a percolation.
If you think of how they used to makecoffee with a percolator, you, you're,
you're boiling the water to get it,

(32:57):
go up the stem and then hit thecoffee and then drain back down.
It's a cycle of percolation.
And I think the idea that what you'retalking about with this reflection is a
key ingredient to theself-awareness. Not just leadership,
but just being able to beaware of your own actions.
I'll give you a case point here. Justrecently, I was in a meeting and, uh,

(33:19):
it still pops up every sideways momentin a meeting that it shouldn't have been
said. You know, and I justhad that happen this week.
And I said something off thecuff, everybody laughed, .
And then later I'm like, you know,it may have impacted somebody. Right?
So that awareness ,
it wasn't there 20 years ago because thismouth just shot off anything it wanted
to. But in the idea of words are things,

(33:42):
yeah. It can be quite impactful.
So an organization I used to workwith had a policy of oops and ouch.
And the policy was this, and anawareness building attempt to get better.
Now when we're talking aboutorganizations getting better,
well we want to get better too.Uh, ideally it basically states,
if you say something that youshouldn't have said off color or not,

(34:05):
just something that wasstepped on somebody's toes. That's a good way to say it.
You say, oops. And then you explain itand you try to build awareness. So the,
you know, you don't justsay, don't say that.
You try to build contextual understanding.
So it becomes moreconscious in that person.
The ouch is the painful reaction.Right? The oops is a self-reflection.

(34:25):
Like, uh, you know, I probablyshouldn't have said that.
It may have come off a littlehokey or offended somebody.
And I did that this week. I, Iemailed the person. I said, Hey, I,
it was in a meeting you werein actually , uh.
I said, you don't say .
If, if you allow people thespace for reflection and expect

(34:45):
learning, that sets thestage for betterment for all.
Absolutely. Actually,
that reflection is what I thinkis what separates knowledge
management from other types of management.'cause management is about, oh,
do this, do this, do this.
But knowledge management says youshould also reflect what you do.
And sometimes, and it takestime. You need to take a pause.

(35:08):
You need to stop and say, now is whatwe're doing actually giving value.
Because sometimes you justkeep on doing instead of Yeah.
Thinking first of what you do. Isn'tthat the logic of knowledge management?
You need to manage, you need tomanage what you're doing before that.
You need to reflect.
And that's why this after action thingand lessons learned and all that stuff,
and usually organizationsthey do, do, do, do, do.

(35:30):
Because they thinkbusyness is productivity,
which is not necessarily the same thing,
but they don't really reflectwhat they do with their time.
What you do is a reflection of whatyou, where you put your money. Some.
Of those organizations are thekind of organizations that say,
people can't work from home. 'causewe don't know what they're doing.
. It's another story. Yeah.
Well, I don't care where yousit. Performance is performance.

(35:50):
Absolutely. But a while ago, whatyou were saying was important. Uh,
got my attention. Words make worlds.
And sometimes one thing that I alsothink organizations need is people in the
organization to have courage to speak up.
Because sometimes somebody says somethinginappropriate and they are just silent
enablers.
Yep. Yep. Exactly. So.
The, the, the workspace has to besafe enough for somebody to say,

(36:13):
you know what? That's not appropriate.You shouldn't be doing that. Yeah. Yeah.
And then, and you won't be killed afterit. Or you won't be punished somehow.
That brings up something in,
in most trainings that I'vehad on workplace issues,
the first empowerment is that you voiceit. You go to the person, say, Hey,
you know, that was offensive.If it doesn't get resolved,
then you go to HR or you go to theboss, or you go to somewhere else.

(36:36):
But the first attempt has to be onthe individual. Because you're right.
If you never say anything,how does anybody know?
That's true. Althoughyou, when you do speak up,
you need to say it ina respectful way. Yeah.
You don't shout profanities and stufflike that. It has to be within rules,
within the code of conduct. Now, ifeverybody plays by that, then yeah,
we can talk about it.

(36:56):
And we can. Yeah. Well, thanks fortalking to me today, my friend.
This has been a joy.
You're welcome. It was a pleasure.It's nice to talk about these things.
It brought a smile toyour face on our Friday.
Well, thanks for this opportunity,VIN. It was really nice. I like it.
This episode is broughtto you by STAs Bosky,
a certified e o s implementerbased in Buffalo, New York.

(37:20):
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