April 2, 2023 • 48 mins
Jim Saliba is a certified coach, trainer, and public speaker with a BA, MBA, and over thirty years of experience in the leadership world.
His career began as a software engineer before being promoted to management in the IT industry, where he eventually became the VP of a $4 billion tech company. He worked tirelessly to gain the knowledge and experience to become a leader employees wanted to follow. He has been in the trenches and has conquered most challenges leaders face throughout their careers.
Jim adopted a growth mindset and created an atmosphere where employees were encouraged to experiment and were rewarded for their hard work. Mistakes were not seen as failures but rather as learning opportunities to make changes and improve. He has leveraged his years of experience and experimentation to develop the successful Triple E structure to help his clients get unstuck so they can progress to the next level of leadership.
#leadership #leadershipdevelopment #coaching #marketing #business #fyp
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dustin Steffey (00:00):
Welcome Chop nation to another new week,
which you all know what thatmeans. Another new exciting
episode. I missed you guys. Iknow it's only been a week but
I'm excited to dive right intoit introduce our new guest
speaker and to provide relevantinformation so you all know what
that means. Let's chop it upWelcome to your top rated global
(00:27):
podcast that is your one stopshop for everything
entrepreneurship, selfdevelopment, and smart
investment decisions. Thispodcast is hosted by owner, Dr.
And creator Dustin Steffey wereblessed to have accolades that
include a 2022 nomination by thePeople's Podcast Awards, in the
(00:47):
category of business moneydonated to two amazing causes
cystic fibrosis, and the Boysand Girls Club. Lastly, global
recognition of gaining top 50podcast in four countries.
Without further ado, let's chopit up.
(01:14):
I have Jim on. I am not going tobutcher his last name. Hill,
Hill, Hill Hill, say it for me.
So I don't butcher it. So I'veJim on. He's a certified Coach
and Trainer, very good publicspeaker. And he has a wealth of
experience, including MBA, anMBA and over 30 years of
experience in the leadershipworld. So Jim, welcome to
traveling with fire. How areyou?
Jim Saliba (01:38):
I'm doing great.
Thank you for having me on. I'mreally excited to be here.
Dustin Steffey (01:43):
I'm excited to have you on and I'm excited to
address a topic that I think isunder addressed in my opinion.
Jim Saliba (01:51):
Yes, I think leadership has a lot of
information out there. But it'svery confusing. There are more
books about business andleadership than I think anything
out there. But they're allisolated topics, because
leadership is a huge topic. WhatI tried to do, actually, with my
(02:13):
book, when I put out there astried to draw it all together.
Dustin Steffey (02:18):
I think depending on who who speaks,
right, the leadership journey isdifferent for everyone. So like
for me, as everyone knows, Istill haven't broken the chain
yet from my normal nine to five.
And so I have a boss. Be that asit may. I mean, if your boss
likes you great if he doesn'tlike you, great he or she right?
(02:38):
Because then you either don'tpromote or you do promote but
leadership, I think, in myopinion, when I look at people,
right? You don't work for thecompany, you work for people.
And if you don't like who yourleader is, then I don't think it
works out very well. Or, forexample, I dislike the companies
(02:59):
where maybe you're an employeethat is an excellent employee,
but you did something wrong,right? Something happened. So
that resonates with everyone andforever, you have a black mark
on you and you never promote Idon't like that either.
Jim Saliba (03:15):
Something you said in there really resonated right?
Often you're not working for thecompany, but you're working for
your direct manager. If you getalong really well. It's a great
thing. But if you don't, this iswhy people leave people
generally don't leave companies,they leave their manager. So
(03:37):
I've seen lots of data outthere. It is so true.
Dustin Steffey (03:41):
Yeah, it's definitely insane. I know we're
gonna dive into a lot ofdifferent topics. But before we
do that, I want to I want topump the brakes a little bit,
okay. And I want people to getto know you. It's important, I
think, for people to be able toresonate with who's talking
right, and depending on howthey're listening, if they're
listening in the car, they don'tsee you. So let's let's kind of
(04:03):
just clue them in on a few funthings about you and kind of
what led you to here.
Jim Saliba (04:09):
Okay, well, I I started my journey in software
development, I was an engineer,grew up through the ranks became
a manager. And what I really wasexciting for me was the
intersection between businessand technology and what we can
do with that. So when I became amanager, I wanted to learn how
(04:34):
to lead how to be better, but Ididn't have much information out
there. Started doing all my ownreading, got books, went to
seminars actually went back toschool to get my MBA, but most
of it was on my own dime and myown time. Luckily, I did have
(04:54):
tuition reimbursement for forschool, the big one but it was
is really my own motivation togo out and do this. And that's
what really helped me grow to bea VP at one point in time in a
$4 billion organization, then Iwent out on my own. And I went
(05:15):
from having a huge team to beingjust three people, me, myself
and I.
Dustin Steffey (05:22):
And just kind of continuing it, right? I look at
I look at your journey and myjourney. And we all have
different journeys, right. Sowith that being said, we all
have different perspectives ondefining leadership. So for me,
for an example, I defineleadership as an individual or a
(05:43):
pair of individuals, or howevermany, right what whatever the
case may be, we'll just doindividual for now, an
individual that has the skillset and capabilities to help
foster a culture of differentdirect reports, to be able to
create success and help them topromote into the same leadership
(06:06):
roles. So it's almost like amentor of some sort. But with a
leader, you also have a littlemore responsibilities. Not only
are you mentoring and fosteringa culture, but you're also
trying to drive the businessdepending on what the business
is, and their culture as welland go to a common goal. I know
(06:27):
that's an elongated response.
But that's kind of how I thinkof it.
Jim Saliba (06:32):
Yeah, so that happens. All the time, people
get move up when their careerand their, as we were talking
earlier, there, the technicalexpertise that they have becomes
a little less important becausethey need to be able to manage
and lead people while the peopleare doing the technical parts of
(06:55):
the job. So they move up forreasons that they understand the
business and the technology thatthey need to be in. But they
don't understand yet how tolead, build that culture that
you're talking about. And somepeople make the bridge and some
people don't. And often myclients that I talked to feel
(07:19):
stuck, because they're having ahard time making that bridge and
I help them move forward withit, start thinking differently,
more broader about the businessand how it all works. Without
that, you're not going to beable to make it happen.
Dustin Steffey (07:38):
I think another important thing to reach out to
and I, you know, you know me, Ithink analytically is there's a
difference between being aleader and being a manager.
Okay, I definitely know thatthere's a distinct difference
between it sometimes is blendedtogether, and people think of it
(07:58):
as the same, but I do not, Ithink of it as two separate
things.
Jim Saliba (08:02):
It's definitely two separate things. A classic view
of it is that a manager doesright things. Now does things
right, a leader does the rightthings. So it's kind of looking
at different things. A manager,for example, in a larger
organization, may not need toknow where the whole company is
(08:26):
going strategically. They'rerunning a team, they do what
they do. And they're trying tomake those tasks happen as
efficient as possible. A leaderis committed to helping move the
organization to its futurestate, its futures goals. So and
(08:48):
how how we do that is verydifferent a manager managers
tasks tell you what to do. Whenthe Doom a leader is going to
tell you about the goal. Andthey only depend on you to
figure out how to help us boththere.
Dustin Steffey (09:04):
I also think between you and I, that there
are different different levelsof leadership too. So when we
look at leadership, if yourmanagers doing their job, right
for the people under the managerin my mind, right, you're
fostering a culture ofleadership down below. So you're
(09:25):
developing those leaders to beeven greater leaders as they
move up in the ranks to actuallyfoster that culture you were
talking about right to drive thebusiness to its future state.
However, what I'm seeing in thisday and age and correct me if
I'm wrong, because you have waymore experience than I do. What
(09:46):
I'm seeing is he have managersthat are micromanaging, per se,
and they're not fostering thisleadership culture. They're
telling you everything thatyou're doing wrong wrong, and
not not really helping you to doanything, right. And it's
(10:07):
creating morale like declines. Imean, I'm in a company right now
where there's a lot of changegoing on. And if we have the
right leaders in place with thischange, I mean, we can explain
this a little bit better. Andmake sure we're fostering the
right culture. But the messagewe're sending is different. Lots
(10:30):
of managing in a different way.
And I just think that things canbe a little bit better, right.
And this is not to downplay theorganization that I work for,
for the people that do know me,it's more or less to call out.
Like, there's a different way wecan approach some of these
things to create success, right.
Jim Saliba (10:52):
So I see this a lot as well. Somebody who is really
good about at their job, we makethem a manager, and we hope that
they're going to help the teambe as good as they are. But what
happens is, we don't help thatmanager understand the new
(11:12):
roles. So what starts to happenis that manager says, I'm here
because I know how it works. Iwas successful, therefore, you
should do it my way. And therebecomes the birth of
micromanaging. I'm the smartestone in the room. I know how to
(11:32):
do it, right? And also forcersthe mindset of if you need to
get something done, you need todo itself, right, all of that
forces, that that micromanagingpiece, to get beyond that and
start helping people understandtheir job from a coaching point
(11:54):
of view, one of the new thingsthat are out there as managers
as coaches, and it kind oftwists the mindset of, instead
of me telling you what to do. Istart asking more questions to
help you understand what youneed to do and make that happen.
So that there is a good book outthere called the Coaching Habit,
(12:16):
which helps with
Dustin Steffey (12:17):
we will be right back after a quick break. Hello,
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Another thing that I think wesee too and I had brought it up
earlier is how about the personunder the manager, the employee,
right. been around a long time,but some things happened. Right.
(14:30):
And so that person forever likeblacklisted almost from being
able to do anything or promotewithin the company because the
manager or management team orwhatever has a preconceived
notion of this person just isnever going to be good enough to
be in the leadership role.
Jim Saliba (14:54):
That does happen.
Sometimes it's true sometimesit's not right but I believe
Give everybody should have achance. And that's why I'd like
this coaching type of mentalityof managers to help people move
where they are. For example,when I first became a manager,
and I had people under me, I hada one on one with each person,
once a week scheduled once aweek, my rules were this, it's
(15:18):
only 15 minutes long, we have itonce a week. If we don't, if we
miss one, because things happen,don't have to reschedule, just
go the next one. So now I knowI'm gonna have two to three
meetings with this person everymonth. It is not my meeting, it
is their meeting, they scheduleit, they need to make sure it's
(15:41):
on the calendar, they shouldgive me an agenda 24 hours ahead
of time. So this way I canprepare and use their time, as
as efficiently as I can. It'snot for me, it's really for me
to do better by them. And thenthe other thing is, I always put
in the rule at least once amonth, you have to have on your
(16:05):
agenda, personal development.
And I can tell you that it tooka while to really get going. But
it turned out great. And matterof fact, a few years later, when
I was moving out of the groupand into a different area of the
company. I had one person whosaid, can we still have those
(16:26):
monthly personal developmentmeetings, even though you're not
my boss anymore? Because it madea big difference for them. I
believe coaching people is itand that's why I became a coach
myself. I believe in it.
Dustin Steffey (16:43):
Yeah, that's something that I see in some of
these larger organizations. Sothe organization I work for,
does a really good job of tryingto drive you to have personal
development goals, where I thinkit falls short sometimes is
actually driving those goals.
You know what I mean? Soactually, like, sat in meetings,
(17:04):
like you're saying and talkingabout them more frequently, to
be able to grow, instead ofhaving a manager or leader
saying, You need to fixyourself, like there's proactive
things that are involved to helpfoster fixing whatever the
opportunity is, because I don'twant to call it an issue, it's
(17:26):
an opportunity so
Jim Saliba (17:30):
well, I always tell my people, your career is your
responsibility. It's not reallymy responsibility. I'm going to
help you do whatever you want todo. I'm going to help you. I
believe it's my job. Not allmanagers do that. But truly your
career is your responsibility.
So I make sure we talk about itthat way. When I coach them, and
(17:56):
they come talk to me, theirresults are their
responsibility. If they if wetalk and we and you say Oh, Jim,
that's great. Here's myactivities that I'm going to do
between now and next time wemeet. It's your responsibility
to get it done. I'll help youhold yourself accountable. But
(18:19):
ultimately, it's really you.
Dustin Steffey (18:26):
Which I believe in that you drive your own
career. And I get that I thinkwhere the shortness falls in is
the checking in and making surethat the accountability is
there.
Jim Saliba (18:37):
Yeah, I think too many companies do this as a once
a year or twice a year thing.
You set your SMART goals, and weput them on the shelf, and we
forget about it for the next sixmonths. I don't think that's
healthy for the employee or, or,or even me, for example, I was a
leader early on during some ofthe.com explosion, and we were
(19:03):
losing people like crazy in theorganization going to startups.
Because we we weren't givingpeople room to grow and be
excited about their job. I usedto even lend people out to other
areas of the company. This wasreally good about a big company,
(19:26):
because my employee had a desireof learning things that wasn't
happening in my department. So Iwould lend them out to other
departments now and then for afew hours a week so they can
learn and get that experience.
And and I can tell you that whenI went to those other managers
(19:47):
and said I was going to do this,their jaw dropped and they said
how much is it gonna cost mewhat do I have to do? You're
gonna give me somebody for acouple hours a week. Are you
crazy? But those are the peoplethat I that still contact with
me that we talk all the time,years, years in years later.
Dustin Steffey (20:10):
Yeah, see, that's that's the culture that
needs to be fostered is, is tothe point where you're reaching
out to these leaders on analmost like going through what
the journey was all the way upuntil now. I mean, that's where,
you know, you have some success,strong man, and I have people
within my organization that I dotalk to that, that do help me
(20:32):
with that. Um, I, I just thinkthat the most important
conversation here is gettingback to the basics, right,
getting back to what, whatshould a manager or a leader do?
And how do they do it as well asthey can to drive what you were
saying in the beginning, whichis future results,
Jim Saliba (20:55):
right. So when I help leaders do this, I have
what I wrote in my book, the sixstep Leadership Challenge six
steps for leaders to do over andover again, to understand where
they are now, where their visionis, where they want to go and
start putting an action plan andputting that action plan into
(21:18):
action. But I have a fourquadrants of leadership that I
put together to help leadersunderstand things that they want
to work on. And the firstquadrant is about vision and
strategy. Even if I am a middlemanager within an organization,
I should have a vision for mygroup and where my group should
(21:40):
be and how we operate. And startthinking about how do I change
my group and the culture to getthere. The second quadrant is
about execution, andexperimenting, doing things,
experimenting, learning from it,and getting your execution
better and better. The thirdquadrant is about people
(22:01):
processes and, and systems, theculture of the organization
could be working for you, or itcould be working against you,
you have to understand yourcorporate culture and how to
either move it or work with it.
And then it's people doprocesses and systems in place.
Often companies have processesthat they put in place years
(22:25):
ago, that will put in for somereason that was a right thing,
then, but it isn't helping themnow. So we have to constantly
look at that. And the lastquadrant is what we call
executive presence. How do I howdo I identify myself? How do
people see me How well do Icommunicate? What is my network?
(22:47):
What are the people that arehelping me move? And what are
the people not helping me move?
And then of course, how do youput that all together? So we
look at their soft spots inthese different quadrants. And
then we start putting a plantogether, month by month to work
(23:07):
on them.
Dustin Steffey (23:11):
So this systematic flow that you and I
have been talking about, what'sthe success rate you've seen in
in organizations and peoplefollowing this, this kind of
flow?
Jim Saliba (23:24):
One on people follow this kind of flow, and they
actually hold themselvesaccountable. It it works
fantastic. Everybody sees sometype of improvement. Most people
that I work with See, seepromotions or moving into bigger
jobs and when other companies.
The other thing that I seehappen a lot. On the other side
(23:46):
of the coin, if a manager is notmoving up in their leadership,
their leadership higher up aresaying, well, my people aren't
really stepping up to the plateand I need to move up. And I'll
help them probably across awhole team. And that's a little
bit different, because nowthey're sitting together when I
(24:07):
talk to them. And it's oftenabout getting rid of the silos,
and how do we collaboratetogether? I find it really
interesting how organizationstalk about collaboration,
collaboration, where team Oh, weall work together. But when it
comes time to do reviews, it'sall independent. So we
(24:30):
incentivize independent growtheven though we talked about team
so much.
Dustin Steffey (24:41):
And with with everything that we've been
discussing, I know that you'veyou've developed many leaders,
with with with this plan that'sput into place where do metrics
fall into that because I think alot of people sometimes times
when metrics are brought up,they feel they feel as if
(25:05):
they're failure if the metricsare bad, right? And what what
metrics can you control? Howmuch of the conversation within
this leadership journey shouldbe metrics versus development?
Jim Saliba (25:19):
Well, you know, I'm talking to an engineer, I'm a
data guy. So metrics are veryimportant. But the problem that
I see happen often is people usethe metrics that's available,
rather than the metrics I need.
So sometimes you have to createthe metric that you need. And
(25:41):
the other thing is that there'smetrics fall into three
categories. One, are tasks,things that I do, I can measure
if I do them or not, there isoutput. Did I develop a report
that I suppose give out thesales numbers that I develop and
push out software? Whatever itis, that's output, we can
(26:06):
measure that easily? Outcomes?
business outcomes, are laggingindicators, they're hard? Are
they take a long time? Did Ireach my financial goals? Are we
growing our market, they take along time. But you need to map
these all together, I do tasks,so I get output, I need output
(26:29):
so I can get out homes. Oftenthey're not tied together. So
I'm doing a bunch of work. AndI'm outputting stuff. And I'm
not moving my financial metricsat all. So it's about having the
right metrics. And understandingthat thing, they should all be
(26:51):
working together, whether you'remeasuring your performance
increase as a leader, or yourbusiness performance increase,
it's getting the right metrics.
And often, I call it a scoreboard, instead of a dashboard.
People create these dashboardswith all kinds of numbers on it.
But if you look at a scoreboardat a game, it has minimal
(27:14):
numbers on it. And you knowwhere we are in the game at any
point in time. Right? So whatare the right things and
minimize the number of them?
Dustin Steffey (27:27):
Yeah, so you, you've made a comment, you're an
engineer. So metrics and dataare important. I too, like
metrics and data, because I liketo measure things. But sometimes
there are external or eveninternal factors that aren't
counted within those metrics. Sothere's more to the data than
what meets the eye. And Ilaughed. I know, I was on mute,
(27:50):
but I laughed when you broughtup dashboard, because that's
what my company calls ourmetrics is a dashboard. And so
there are definitely lots ofnumbers. And for someone new
coming into my company, forexample, it is definitely a lot.
Right. For someone like me,who's been around for a decade.
(28:11):
It's second nature.
Unknown (28:14):
Yes, yes. So, but the thing is, we can get lost in
those numbers. Right? I have allkinds of numbers giving me
information. What is the rightinformation that I need to make
a decision? Right? I'm notsaying get rid of all these
other numbers, but there are thetop ones that you need to pay
(28:36):
attention to. And if it's notthe right number, or it's not
going the right direction, Ibelieve more in trends, and then
then the value of a number at asingle point, right? Am I moving
in the right direction? If it'snot? Well, what's the data I
need to know to figure out whyit's not moving in the right
(28:57):
direction? That's why I say theyall have to map up. And, and
again, it's nothing more than anexperiment because we think
putting out more software isgoing to get more sales. But
that's not necessarily true. Ihave to put out the right
software, I have to put out thesoftware people want I have to
get people engaged, what is themarket asking for? Right without
(29:21):
that understanding, just puttingout software is not going to
make my numbers look better.
Dustin Steffey (29:27):
Yeah, and you brought up something really
important, you can get lost inthe numbers really easily unless
you know what you're lookingfor. And I think at that point
between you and I, that's wheresomeone like a manager steps in
on what what the goal is forwhatever the quarter, the month,
the week, whatever and reallytry to teach on what to look for
(29:50):
are certain times which thecompany I work for does a really
good job at that. But still,like I said, it's a lot of
numbers right? And if you don'tknow what you're doing Looking
for it? You can get lost forsure. Right?
Jim Saliba (30:03):
Right. Yes. So and and that's why I don't always
like to look at numbers, I liketo look at trends. It's more
about patterns, patterns, are wemoving in the right direction?
Are we moving slower thanexpected? Are we moving faster
than expected? That's, I thinkthat's the big key that we need
(30:25):
to be looking looking into.
Dustin Steffey (30:28):
Yep. And then another another thing that was
brought up, while we're on thistopic of numbers, and training,
and all of that stuff iscontinuing to grow, right,
continuing to educate yourselfcontinuing to really take that
bull by the horns, right. And,and own development as a whole.
(30:50):
I don't think it stops with amanager, I don't think it stops
with employees, I think thewhole organization as a whole,
or entrepreneur, for myentrepreneurs out there, even
for single entrepreneurs thatare running their own business,
you still have to learn, stop todo things.
Jim Saliba (31:09):
Our environment, our markets are changing every day.
If COVID taught us anything,it's that life. And markets can
change at any time verydrastically. And unless we're
willing to learn and understandthat, we're not going to make
(31:29):
it. There are many, manyarticles and blogs out there
that talk about the five or 10top skills of a leader, the top
skills or two of them to selfawareness, self development.
Without those two, you're nevergoing to get all the other ones
(31:51):
that people talk about.
Dustin Steffey (31:55):
So what is your stance on continued education
and learning? I feel like yourstance is pretty big on that. If
we're being honest here.
Unknown (32:05):
I believe that I will continue to learn something
every day until I stop living.
Dustin Steffey (32:12):
I feel like that's me too. When you stop
when you stop learning. That'swhen you're in a grave to me
anyway, right?
Jim Saliba (32:21):
Yep. Yes, exactly. I believe the same thing. Learning
is something that we need tocompletely do. And as adults, we
learn different than we werekids, when we were young and
elementary school, we learned wewere sponges, all we had to do
was listen and we soak it in.
Adults are different, wereexperiential, we learn through
(32:42):
experience, we do something, weobserve what happens, oh, shoot,
if I put my hand in a mean,dog's mouth, I'm gonna get it
and it's gonna hurt. Okay, I'llnever do that, again. We do that
all the time. We're constantlydoing that. And to become a
leader and grow your leadership,you have to experiment and try
(33:05):
things out. Some things willwork. Some things won't work.
But you have to try things out.
And what I say is experimentlike a fifth grader. When I was
in fifth grade, we did this finescience fair thing, we had to do
the poster board with ahypothesis on top, the
(33:28):
experiment we did, and did theexperiment, prove or disprove
our hypothesis. That's the levelwe should be doing and trying
things out. I believe so manypeople go out on we're going to
try this out. Then six monthslater, you'll ask them about it.
Did it work or didn't work?
Well, it's sort of kind of nowyou need a timeframe. A real if
(33:50):
a hypothesis. If I do a thinkI'll get B, what's my experiment
that it happened or didn'thappen? And the shorter you make
that happen? What's thesimplest, shortest experiment I
can do to prove or disprove thatand allows that learning loop to
come faster and faster?
Dustin Steffey (34:15):
I think something that you brought up
that's important, too, istangible time, right? Being able
to have time measurements, perse, in in this change in in what
you're trying to drive. I thinkthat's so important.
Jim Saliba (34:32):
Yes, yes. So, in my way, I create activities. I have
a 3060 90 day plan and, andthere's probably several
different ones out there and Ihave mine that includes those
timeframes, and kind of swimlanes across of each of my
quadrants. So you're working onall those across time, but I
(34:56):
also put in at the end of each30 days is just the next 30
days, way too often people putplans together, and it kind of
falls apart because we don'tknow how that plan is actually
(35:17):
going to meet the rest of theworld. We have our crystal ball.
And mine just like anybodyelse's is foggy and cracked. And
I can't tell exactly what'sgoing to happen, we're going to
take our best guess. But and weput that in our plan. But when
we put it out into the world,and we start acting it, it may
(35:37):
not go the way we expected. Infact, it probably won't. But
what are we learning from it andto adjust? In fact, we just have
the super bowl right? Both teamswent in with a game plan of what
they were going to do, but playby play, they adjust their game
plan in real time, we should bedoing the exact same thing.
Dustin Steffey (36:05):
I definitely agree with that one. And I'm
glad that you use the Super Bowlanalogy. I mean, you have two
very highly competitive teamsthat have game plans that are
going into it. And I mean, thatgame was an awesome game. I
mean, very close game. So bothgame plans, were well coached,
well executed in my, in my mind.
Jim Saliba (36:25):
Yep. They both went in well prepared, they both went
in with great coaching, theyboth went in with a game plan.
All right. And it could havegone either way, because they
were so close through the entiretime.
Dustin Steffey (36:41):
And that's a big word that is thrown around a
lot, right? execution, executionexecution executing the plan. I
think that's super important.
Jim Saliba (36:53):
Yes. So the plan, executing the plan also must
include learning and adjustingalong the way. Because we put a
plan together with our bestknowledge. And it starts to
change. And we get new data andnew knowledge every day that the
plan is, is in execution. So westart moving and changing it.
(37:16):
I'm not saying change the goal,but you may change and tweak how
you do things, right. Oh, god,it's taking a lot longer than we
thought going this path? Shouldwe take some scope out? Should
we add some more people to it?
What should we do? There'sdifferent things that we can do
to help move the plan along. Orit may be I put this out in the
(37:38):
market, and I thought the marketwas gonna love it. And Lord, and
behold, they didn't? Do I throwit out? That I go the wrong
direction? What do I need to do?
So many companies do what I calldecision by hippo decision by
(38:01):
the highest paid person'sopinion. Or there's value to
that because there's anexperience. But they're not
necessarily the best opinion. Sooften, I see companies spend
millions 10s and hundreds ofmillions of dollars to build a
product, throw it out in themarket and find out they missed
(38:22):
the mark, where if they didsmall experiments along the way,
it would have limit their risk.
And they would have seen somemoney come in in the meantime.
Dustin Steffey (38:36):
I'm wondering all these new things. I liked
that acronym that you just use,because it's so true.
Jim Saliba (38:44):
It is it is by being more flexible, a, what we would
call a business agility. It'shard. It's it's easy to talk
about and harder to do. But thatis one thing that I help
organizations do is how do theydo things in smaller increments,
(39:06):
and limit risks and theirexposure?
Dustin Steffey (39:11):
What would you say in your mind is the most
important topic you're seeingright now, like this day and age
post COVID? Well, I should usethat term loosely post COVID
COVID didn't disappear. But inthis new world right now, what's
the biggest thing that you'reseeing? Or leaders like what's
(39:34):
the biggest opportunity?
Jim Saliba (39:36):
I think leaders need a lot more education early on.
Look at look at it right now.
Between 2022 and the first sixweeks of this year 2023 200,000
jobs were laid off 200,000That's a lot of jobs now and
(39:57):
that two leaders in most ofthese organizations are now
millennials, who never seen arecession in their adult life
and now have to lead through it.
(40:17):
Then add to that, that I don'tgive them leadership training
until 10 years later when theyneed then later than when they
needed it. So I'm calling thatthe perfect storm. And that
couldn't be a problem for a lotof it smaller IT organizations,
the big ones are going to mighthave enough money and things
(40:39):
going on to live through it. Butthe smaller ones are going to
have a problem.
Dustin Steffey (40:44):
Yeah, I see. I see that too. I, my dissertation
was on the different generationsin the workforce, specifically
Baby Boomers to generation, xand y and all of that. And the
biggest thing that I saw was, ifwe're not learning, so I'm a
(41:05):
millennial, if we didn't learnfrom the baby boomers that were
in the workforce that areexiting, or anybody before us,
we really you're gonna strugglequite a bit, because we're
raised around technology. So wethink technology does
everything. And a lot of thesoft skills that were learned in
generations prior to mine arenot the same for millennials,
(41:29):
right? The soft skills aredefinitely different and lacking
in my mind.
Jim Saliba (41:35):
I would agree with that, that the experience is
completely different. We hadtechnology to use as a crutch in
many ways. But the world we livein, is moving significantly
faster for you than it was forme. So the need for those soft
(41:56):
skills and to be able to leadthrough it, I think are more
demanding for you than it wasfor me.
Dustin Steffey (42:05):
I would have to say I agree with that statement.
I definitely agree. Andespecially in a day and age
where technology is quadruplethan what it was back 1015 2030
years ago, a lot of workflowshave changed to where there's a
lot more work added on. Becausewe have technology to be able to
(42:28):
mitigate some of that work to beable to do more, right?
Jim Saliba (42:33):
Yes to do, we can do a lot more because some things
are done for us in technology,it makes it easier. But
sometimes, where we're relyingon it too much, and we don't
understand the concepts that arehappening underneath, and we
make assumptions that areworking against us rather than
(42:57):
for us.
Dustin Steffey (42:59):
Yeah, I'd have to say I agree with that
statement 100%. If there was onekey thing that you would like to
leave with the listeners, so saywe didn't explain any of this,
like we weren't, we weren't on apodcast for an hour, discussing
all this good information. Whatwould that one thing be?
Jim Saliba (43:24):
I believe if you want to grow as a leader,
there's three things that youreally need to focus on. As I
said, self awareness. What'sworking for me, what's not
working for me, what's holdingme back, what fears are holding
me back, because we all have theawareness of what's going on
around me with my employees andso on. Self awareness is one
(43:48):
because it leads you to whatyour needs are. self
development, taking that anddeveloping things that you need
to grow and handle what'shappening. And the third thing
is don't do it alone. You know,we were in the new year, where
(44:08):
everybody's going to the gym,and you say, oh, you should have
a gym buddy to make sure youstay doing it. Well, this is the
same thing. You should havesomebody helping you a mentor, a
coach, somebody to help youbecause there'll be times that
you're going to struggle, andyou need that extra person to
(44:28):
help you through it. That's whyI got into executive coaching to
do exactly that, because I sawthat need to really help people
get to that next level.
Dustin Steffey (44:41):
I think that's some really good solid advice.
And it leads us into a differentconversation as well, which is
advice. You have books, you havea couple of things to help
people out with leadership.
You're a coach, let's talk aboutthat. And let's talk about how
people can enroll your servicesor enroll you to kind of help
(45:01):
them out.
Jim Saliba (45:04):
Okay, that's great.
I kind of put myself on amission to transform the world
of work. And although thatsounds big and bold, when I work
with a leader, and I'm talkingto them, and I see that light
bulb go off on their head andthings clip, I know, I just
changed his world aware, ortheir world of work, and all the
(45:25):
people that work for them. So Ido that at one conversation at a
time, but I figured that wasslow. And I wanted to scale. So
I wrote the book, the six stepleadership challenge. So people
don't necessarily need to talkto me, they can buy the book off
of Amazon, and and try thingsout for themselves. I am
starting to put together aonline course to go with it to
(45:50):
get even more help. And then ofcourse, coaching, we'll help you
even further than that. And forthat, you can get me on my
website, James saliba.com. Oryou can find me on LinkedIn, I'm
very active on LinkedIn, and Irespond to people within within
24 To 48 to 48 hours. If you gothere, you'll see I have some
(46:15):
free webinars happening everycouple of months. So you can
join up there. And I'm also onTwitter, so you can reach me in
those different areas.
Dustin Steffey (46:27):
And again, there's a lot of areas,
obviously, I will put links inthe episode description to help
everyone out with that todefinitely get a hold of and
make sure they can get to theright person. Also, our website
does have your awesome profileon there, which I definitely
encourage everybody to go andread it. I think it's great
(46:48):
profile, in my opinion.
Jim Saliba (46:50):
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Dustin Steffey (46:52):
I appreciate you, my friend. Thank you for
the wonderful conversation, kindof thank you for explaining some
of these differences that Ithink sometimes get lost in
translation. I think that thiswas an important conversation.
And I kind of look forward toseeing kind of how this
conversation drives others aswell.
Jim Saliba (47:12):
Great. Thank you very much for having me. I
really enjoyed having thatdiscussion.
Dustin Steffey (47:18):
Yeah, it's always a fun discussion. I
definitely could be doing thisfor hours upon hours if I wanted
to. Anything else that you wantto leave anyone with before we
let you off the hook?
Jim Saliba (47:31):
No, I think that's great. If you want to talk to
me, find me on LinkedIn or on mywebsite. Email me. I'd love to
have a conversation.
Dustin Steffey (47:40):
Awesome.
Perfect. meet you. I enjoyed ourconversation and this probably
isn't the last time we talk. Sothank you
Welcome Chop nation to another new week,
which you all know what thatmeans. Another new exciting
episode. I missed you guys. Iknow it's only been a week but
I'm excited to dive right intoit introduce our new guest
speaker and to provide relevantinformation so you all know what
that means. Let's chop it upWelcome to your top rated global
(00:27):
podcast that is your one stopshop for everything
entrepreneurship, selfdevelopment, and smart
investment decisions. Thispodcast is hosted by owner, Dr.
And creator Dustin Steffey wereblessed to have accolades that
include a 2022 nomination by thePeople's Podcast Awards, in the
(00:47):
category of business moneydonated to two amazing causes
cystic fibrosis, and the Boysand Girls Club. Lastly, global
recognition of gaining top 50podcast in four countries.
Without further ado, let's chopit up.
(01:14):
I have Jim on. I am not going tobutcher his last name. Hill,
Hill, Hill Hill, say it for me.
So I don't butcher it. So I'veJim on. He's a certified Coach
and Trainer, very good publicspeaker. And he has a wealth of
experience, including MBA, anMBA and over 30 years of
experience in the leadershipworld. So Jim, welcome to
traveling with fire. How areyou?
Jim Saliba (01:38):
I'm doing great.
Thank you for having me on. I'mreally excited to be here.
Dustin Steffey (01:43):
I'm excited to have you on and I'm excited to
address a topic that I think isunder addressed in my opinion.
Jim Saliba (01:51):
Yes, I think leadership has a lot of
information out there. But it'svery confusing. There are more
books about business andleadership than I think anything
out there. But they're allisolated topics, because
leadership is a huge topic. WhatI tried to do, actually, with my
(02:13):
book, when I put out there astried to draw it all together.
Dustin Steffey (02:18):
I think depending on who who speaks,
right, the leadership journey isdifferent for everyone. So like
for me, as everyone knows, Istill haven't broken the chain
yet from my normal nine to five.
And so I have a boss. Be that asit may. I mean, if your boss
likes you great if he doesn'tlike you, great he or she right?
(02:38):
Because then you either don'tpromote or you do promote but
leadership, I think, in myopinion, when I look at people,
right? You don't work for thecompany, you work for people.
And if you don't like who yourleader is, then I don't think it
works out very well. Or, forexample, I dislike the companies
(02:59):
where maybe you're an employeethat is an excellent employee,
but you did something wrong,right? Something happened. So
that resonates with everyone andforever, you have a black mark
on you and you never promote Idon't like that either.
Jim Saliba (03:15):
Something you said in there really resonated right?
Often you're not working for thecompany, but you're working for
your direct manager. If you getalong really well. It's a great
thing. But if you don't, this iswhy people leave people
generally don't leave companies,they leave their manager. So
(03:37):
I've seen lots of data outthere. It is so true.
Dustin Steffey (03:41):
Yeah, it's definitely insane. I know we're
gonna dive into a lot ofdifferent topics. But before we
do that, I want to I want topump the brakes a little bit,
okay. And I want people to getto know you. It's important, I
think, for people to be able toresonate with who's talking
right, and depending on howthey're listening, if they're
listening in the car, they don'tsee you. So let's let's kind of
(04:03):
just clue them in on a few funthings about you and kind of
what led you to here.
Jim Saliba (04:09):
Okay, well, I I started my journey in software
development, I was an engineer,grew up through the ranks became
a manager. And what I really wasexciting for me was the
intersection between businessand technology and what we can
do with that. So when I became amanager, I wanted to learn how
(04:34):
to lead how to be better, but Ididn't have much information out
there. Started doing all my ownreading, got books, went to
seminars actually went back toschool to get my MBA, but most
of it was on my own dime and myown time. Luckily, I did have
(04:54):
tuition reimbursement for forschool, the big one but it was
is really my own motivation togo out and do this. And that's
what really helped me grow to bea VP at one point in time in a
$4 billion organization, then Iwent out on my own. And I went
(05:15):
from having a huge team to beingjust three people, me, myself
and I.
Dustin Steffey (05:22):
And just kind of continuing it, right? I look at
I look at your journey and myjourney. And we all have
different journeys, right. Sowith that being said, we all
have different perspectives ondefining leadership. So for me,
for an example, I defineleadership as an individual or a
(05:43):
pair of individuals, or howevermany, right what whatever the
case may be, we'll just doindividual for now, an
individual that has the skillset and capabilities to help
foster a culture of differentdirect reports, to be able to
create success and help them topromote into the same leadership
(06:06):
roles. So it's almost like amentor of some sort. But with a
leader, you also have a littlemore responsibilities. Not only
are you mentoring and fosteringa culture, but you're also
trying to drive the businessdepending on what the business
is, and their culture as welland go to a common goal. I know
(06:27):
that's an elongated response.
But that's kind of how I thinkof it.
Jim Saliba (06:32):
Yeah, so that happens. All the time, people
get move up when their careerand their, as we were talking
earlier, there, the technicalexpertise that they have becomes
a little less important becausethey need to be able to manage
and lead people while the peopleare doing the technical parts of
(06:55):
the job. So they move up forreasons that they understand the
business and the technology thatthey need to be in. But they
don't understand yet how tolead, build that culture that
you're talking about. And somepeople make the bridge and some
people don't. And often myclients that I talked to feel
(07:19):
stuck, because they're having ahard time making that bridge and
I help them move forward withit, start thinking differently,
more broader about the businessand how it all works. Without
that, you're not going to beable to make it happen.
Dustin Steffey (07:38):
I think another important thing to reach out to
and I, you know, you know me, Ithink analytically is there's a
difference between being aleader and being a manager.
Okay, I definitely know thatthere's a distinct difference
between it sometimes is blendedtogether, and people think of it
(07:58):
as the same, but I do not, Ithink of it as two separate
things.
Jim Saliba (08:02):
It's definitely two separate things. A classic view
of it is that a manager doesright things. Now does things
right, a leader does the rightthings. So it's kind of looking
at different things. A manager,for example, in a larger
organization, may not need toknow where the whole company is
(08:26):
going strategically. They'rerunning a team, they do what
they do. And they're trying tomake those tasks happen as
efficient as possible. A leaderis committed to helping move the
organization to its futurestate, its futures goals. So and
(08:48):
how how we do that is verydifferent a manager managers
tasks tell you what to do. Whenthe Doom a leader is going to
tell you about the goal. Andthey only depend on you to
figure out how to help us boththere.
Dustin Steffey (09:04):
I also think between you and I, that there
are different different levelsof leadership too. So when we
look at leadership, if yourmanagers doing their job, right
for the people under the managerin my mind, right, you're
fostering a culture ofleadership down below. So you're
(09:25):
developing those leaders to beeven greater leaders as they
move up in the ranks to actuallyfoster that culture you were
talking about right to drive thebusiness to its future state.
However, what I'm seeing in thisday and age and correct me if
I'm wrong, because you have waymore experience than I do. What
(09:46):
I'm seeing is he have managersthat are micromanaging, per se,
and they're not fostering thisleadership culture. They're
telling you everything thatyou're doing wrong wrong, and
not not really helping you to doanything, right. And it's
(10:07):
creating morale like declines. Imean, I'm in a company right now
where there's a lot of changegoing on. And if we have the
right leaders in place with thischange, I mean, we can explain
this a little bit better. Andmake sure we're fostering the
right culture. But the messagewe're sending is different. Lots
(10:30):
of managing in a different way.
And I just think that things canbe a little bit better, right.
And this is not to downplay theorganization that I work for,
for the people that do know me,it's more or less to call out.
Like, there's a different way wecan approach some of these
things to create success, right.
Jim Saliba (10:52):
So I see this a lot as well. Somebody who is really
good about at their job, we makethem a manager, and we hope that
they're going to help the teambe as good as they are. But what
happens is, we don't help thatmanager understand the new
(11:12):
roles. So what starts to happenis that manager says, I'm here
because I know how it works. Iwas successful, therefore, you
should do it my way. And therebecomes the birth of
micromanaging. I'm the smartestone in the room. I know how to
(11:32):
do it, right? And also forcersthe mindset of if you need to
get something done, you need todo itself, right, all of that
forces, that that micromanagingpiece, to get beyond that and
start helping people understandtheir job from a coaching point
(11:54):
of view, one of the new thingsthat are out there as managers
as coaches, and it kind oftwists the mindset of, instead
of me telling you what to do. Istart asking more questions to
help you understand what youneed to do and make that happen.
So that there is a good book outthere called the Coaching Habit,
(12:16):
which helps with
Dustin Steffey (12:17):
we will be right back after a quick break. Hello,
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(12:40):
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(13:04):
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Another thing that I think wesee too and I had brought it up
earlier is how about the personunder the manager, the employee,
right. been around a long time,but some things happened. Right.
(14:30):
And so that person forever likeblacklisted almost from being
able to do anything or promotewithin the company because the
manager or management team orwhatever has a preconceived
notion of this person just isnever going to be good enough to
be in the leadership role.
Jim Saliba (14:54):
That does happen.
Sometimes it's true sometimesit's not right but I believe
Give everybody should have achance. And that's why I'd like
this coaching type of mentalityof managers to help people move
where they are. For example,when I first became a manager,
and I had people under me, I hada one on one with each person,
once a week scheduled once aweek, my rules were this, it's
(15:18):
only 15 minutes long, we have itonce a week. If we don't, if we
miss one, because things happen,don't have to reschedule, just
go the next one. So now I knowI'm gonna have two to three
meetings with this person everymonth. It is not my meeting, it
is their meeting, they scheduleit, they need to make sure it's
(15:41):
on the calendar, they shouldgive me an agenda 24 hours ahead
of time. So this way I canprepare and use their time, as
as efficiently as I can. It'snot for me, it's really for me
to do better by them. And thenthe other thing is, I always put
in the rule at least once amonth, you have to have on your
(16:05):
agenda, personal development.
And I can tell you that it tooka while to really get going. But
it turned out great. And matterof fact, a few years later, when
I was moving out of the groupand into a different area of the
company. I had one person whosaid, can we still have those
(16:26):
monthly personal developmentmeetings, even though you're not
my boss anymore? Because it madea big difference for them. I
believe coaching people is itand that's why I became a coach
myself. I believe in it.
Dustin Steffey (16:43):
Yeah, that's something that I see in some of
these larger organizations. Sothe organization I work for,
does a really good job of tryingto drive you to have personal
development goals, where I thinkit falls short sometimes is
actually driving those goals.
You know what I mean? Soactually, like, sat in meetings,
(17:04):
like you're saying and talkingabout them more frequently, to
be able to grow, instead ofhaving a manager or leader
saying, You need to fixyourself, like there's proactive
things that are involved to helpfoster fixing whatever the
opportunity is, because I don'twant to call it an issue, it's
(17:26):
an opportunity so
Jim Saliba (17:30):
well, I always tell my people, your career is your
responsibility. It's not reallymy responsibility. I'm going to
help you do whatever you want todo. I'm going to help you. I
believe it's my job. Not allmanagers do that. But truly your
career is your responsibility.
So I make sure we talk about itthat way. When I coach them, and
(17:56):
they come talk to me, theirresults are their
responsibility. If they if wetalk and we and you say Oh, Jim,
that's great. Here's myactivities that I'm going to do
between now and next time wemeet. It's your responsibility
to get it done. I'll help youhold yourself accountable. But
(18:19):
ultimately, it's really you.
Dustin Steffey (18:26):
Which I believe in that you drive your own
career. And I get that I thinkwhere the shortness falls in is
the checking in and making surethat the accountability is
there.
Jim Saliba (18:37):
Yeah, I think too many companies do this as a once
a year or twice a year thing.
You set your SMART goals, and weput them on the shelf, and we
forget about it for the next sixmonths. I don't think that's
healthy for the employee or, or,or even me, for example, I was a
leader early on during some ofthe.com explosion, and we were
(19:03):
losing people like crazy in theorganization going to startups.
Because we we weren't givingpeople room to grow and be
excited about their job. I usedto even lend people out to other
areas of the company. This wasreally good about a big company,
(19:26):
because my employee had a desireof learning things that wasn't
happening in my department. So Iwould lend them out to other
departments now and then for afew hours a week so they can
learn and get that experience.
And and I can tell you that whenI went to those other managers
(19:47):
and said I was going to do this,their jaw dropped and they said
how much is it gonna cost mewhat do I have to do? You're
gonna give me somebody for acouple hours a week. Are you
crazy? But those are the peoplethat I that still contact with
me that we talk all the time,years, years in years later.
Dustin Steffey (20:10):
Yeah, see, that's that's the culture that
needs to be fostered is, is tothe point where you're reaching
out to these leaders on analmost like going through what
the journey was all the way upuntil now. I mean, that's where,
you know, you have some success,strong man, and I have people
within my organization that I dotalk to that, that do help me
(20:32):
with that. Um, I, I just thinkthat the most important
conversation here is gettingback to the basics, right,
getting back to what, whatshould a manager or a leader do?
And how do they do it as well asthey can to drive what you were
saying in the beginning, whichis future results,
Jim Saliba (20:55):
right. So when I help leaders do this, I have
what I wrote in my book, the sixstep Leadership Challenge six
steps for leaders to do over andover again, to understand where
they are now, where their visionis, where they want to go and
start putting an action plan andputting that action plan into
(21:18):
action. But I have a fourquadrants of leadership that I
put together to help leadersunderstand things that they want
to work on. And the firstquadrant is about vision and
strategy. Even if I am a middlemanager within an organization,
I should have a vision for mygroup and where my group should
(21:40):
be and how we operate. And startthinking about how do I change
my group and the culture to getthere. The second quadrant is
about execution, andexperimenting, doing things,
experimenting, learning from it,and getting your execution
better and better. The thirdquadrant is about people
(22:01):
processes and, and systems, theculture of the organization
could be working for you, or itcould be working against you,
you have to understand yourcorporate culture and how to
either move it or work with it.
And then it's people doprocesses and systems in place.
Often companies have processesthat they put in place years
(22:25):
ago, that will put in for somereason that was a right thing,
then, but it isn't helping themnow. So we have to constantly
look at that. And the lastquadrant is what we call
executive presence. How do I howdo I identify myself? How do
people see me How well do Icommunicate? What is my network?
(22:47):
What are the people that arehelping me move? And what are
the people not helping me move?
And then of course, how do youput that all together? So we
look at their soft spots inthese different quadrants. And
then we start putting a plantogether, month by month to work
(23:07):
on them.
Dustin Steffey (23:11):
So this systematic flow that you and I
have been talking about, what'sthe success rate you've seen in
in organizations and peoplefollowing this, this kind of
flow?
Jim Saliba (23:24):
One on people follow this kind of flow, and they
actually hold themselvesaccountable. It it works
fantastic. Everybody sees sometype of improvement. Most people
that I work with See, seepromotions or moving into bigger
jobs and when other companies.
The other thing that I seehappen a lot. On the other side
(23:46):
of the coin, if a manager is notmoving up in their leadership,
their leadership higher up aresaying, well, my people aren't
really stepping up to the plateand I need to move up. And I'll
help them probably across awhole team. And that's a little
bit different, because nowthey're sitting together when I
(24:07):
talk to them. And it's oftenabout getting rid of the silos,
and how do we collaboratetogether? I find it really
interesting how organizationstalk about collaboration,
collaboration, where team Oh, weall work together. But when it
comes time to do reviews, it'sall independent. So we
(24:30):
incentivize independent growtheven though we talked about team
so much.
Dustin Steffey (24:41):
And with with everything that we've been
discussing, I know that you'veyou've developed many leaders,
with with with this plan that'sput into place where do metrics
fall into that because I think alot of people sometimes times
when metrics are brought up,they feel they feel as if
(25:05):
they're failure if the metricsare bad, right? And what what
metrics can you control? Howmuch of the conversation within
this leadership journey shouldbe metrics versus development?
Jim Saliba (25:19):
Well, you know, I'm talking to an engineer, I'm a
data guy. So metrics are veryimportant. But the problem that
I see happen often is people usethe metrics that's available,
rather than the metrics I need.
So sometimes you have to createthe metric that you need. And
(25:41):
the other thing is that there'smetrics fall into three
categories. One, are tasks,things that I do, I can measure
if I do them or not, there isoutput. Did I develop a report
that I suppose give out thesales numbers that I develop and
push out software? Whatever itis, that's output, we can
(26:06):
measure that easily? Outcomes?
business outcomes, are laggingindicators, they're hard? Are
they take a long time? Did Ireach my financial goals? Are we
growing our market, they take along time. But you need to map
these all together, I do tasks,so I get output, I need output
(26:29):
so I can get out homes. Oftenthey're not tied together. So
I'm doing a bunch of work. AndI'm outputting stuff. And I'm
not moving my financial metricsat all. So it's about having the
right metrics. And understandingthat thing, they should all be
(26:51):
working together, whether you'remeasuring your performance
increase as a leader, or yourbusiness performance increase,
it's getting the right metrics.
And often, I call it a scoreboard, instead of a dashboard.
People create these dashboardswith all kinds of numbers on it.
But if you look at a scoreboardat a game, it has minimal
(27:14):
numbers on it. And you knowwhere we are in the game at any
point in time. Right? So whatare the right things and
minimize the number of them?
Dustin Steffey (27:27):
Yeah, so you, you've made a comment, you're an
engineer. So metrics and dataare important. I too, like
metrics and data, because I liketo measure things. But sometimes
there are external or eveninternal factors that aren't
counted within those metrics. Sothere's more to the data than
what meets the eye. And Ilaughed. I know, I was on mute,
(27:50):
but I laughed when you broughtup dashboard, because that's
what my company calls ourmetrics is a dashboard. And so
there are definitely lots ofnumbers. And for someone new
coming into my company, forexample, it is definitely a lot.
Right. For someone like me,who's been around for a decade.
(28:11):
It's second nature.
Unknown (28:14):
Yes, yes. So, but the thing is, we can get lost in
those numbers. Right? I have allkinds of numbers giving me
information. What is the rightinformation that I need to make
a decision? Right? I'm notsaying get rid of all these
other numbers, but there are thetop ones that you need to pay
(28:36):
attention to. And if it's notthe right number, or it's not
going the right direction, Ibelieve more in trends, and then
then the value of a number at asingle point, right? Am I moving
in the right direction? If it'snot? Well, what's the data I
need to know to figure out whyit's not moving in the right
(28:57):
direction? That's why I say theyall have to map up. And, and
again, it's nothing more than anexperiment because we think
putting out more software isgoing to get more sales. But
that's not necessarily true. Ihave to put out the right
software, I have to put out thesoftware people want I have to
get people engaged, what is themarket asking for? Right without
(29:21):
that understanding, just puttingout software is not going to
make my numbers look better.
Dustin Steffey (29:27):
Yeah, and you brought up something really
important, you can get lost inthe numbers really easily unless
you know what you're lookingfor. And I think at that point
between you and I, that's wheresomeone like a manager steps in
on what what the goal is forwhatever the quarter, the month,
the week, whatever and reallytry to teach on what to look for
(29:50):
are certain times which thecompany I work for does a really
good job at that. But still,like I said, it's a lot of
numbers right? And if you don'tknow what you're doing Looking
for it? You can get lost forsure. Right?
Jim Saliba (30:03):
Right. Yes. So and and that's why I don't always
like to look at numbers, I liketo look at trends. It's more
about patterns, patterns, are wemoving in the right direction?
Are we moving slower thanexpected? Are we moving faster
than expected? That's, I thinkthat's the big key that we need
(30:25):
to be looking looking into.
Dustin Steffey (30:28):
Yep. And then another another thing that was
brought up, while we're on thistopic of numbers, and training,
and all of that stuff iscontinuing to grow, right,
continuing to educate yourselfcontinuing to really take that
bull by the horns, right. And,and own development as a whole.
(30:50):
I don't think it stops with amanager, I don't think it stops
with employees, I think thewhole organization as a whole,
or entrepreneur, for myentrepreneurs out there, even
for single entrepreneurs thatare running their own business,
you still have to learn, stop todo things.
Jim Saliba (31:09):
Our environment, our markets are changing every day.
If COVID taught us anything,it's that life. And markets can
change at any time verydrastically. And unless we're
willing to learn and understandthat, we're not going to make
(31:29):
it. There are many, manyarticles and blogs out there
that talk about the five or 10top skills of a leader, the top
skills or two of them to selfawareness, self development.
Without those two, you're nevergoing to get all the other ones
(31:51):
that people talk about.
Dustin Steffey (31:55):
So what is your stance on continued education
and learning? I feel like yourstance is pretty big on that. If
we're being honest here.
Unknown (32:05):
I believe that I will continue to learn something
every day until I stop living.
Dustin Steffey (32:12):
I feel like that's me too. When you stop
when you stop learning. That'swhen you're in a grave to me
anyway, right?
Jim Saliba (32:21):
Yep. Yes, exactly. I believe the same thing. Learning
is something that we need tocompletely do. And as adults, we
learn different than we werekids, when we were young and
elementary school, we learned wewere sponges, all we had to do
was listen and we soak it in.
Adults are different, wereexperiential, we learn through
(32:42):
experience, we do something, weobserve what happens, oh, shoot,
if I put my hand in a mean,dog's mouth, I'm gonna get it
and it's gonna hurt. Okay, I'llnever do that, again. We do that
all the time. We're constantlydoing that. And to become a
leader and grow your leadership,you have to experiment and try
(33:05):
things out. Some things willwork. Some things won't work.
But you have to try things out.
And what I say is experimentlike a fifth grader. When I was
in fifth grade, we did this finescience fair thing, we had to do
the poster board with ahypothesis on top, the
(33:28):
experiment we did, and did theexperiment, prove or disprove
our hypothesis. That's the levelwe should be doing and trying
things out. I believe so manypeople go out on we're going to
try this out. Then six monthslater, you'll ask them about it.
Did it work or didn't work?
Well, it's sort of kind of nowyou need a timeframe. A real if
(33:50):
a hypothesis. If I do a thinkI'll get B, what's my experiment
that it happened or didn'thappen? And the shorter you make
that happen? What's thesimplest, shortest experiment I
can do to prove or disprove thatand allows that learning loop to
come faster and faster?
Dustin Steffey (34:15):
I think something that you brought up
that's important, too, istangible time, right? Being able
to have time measurements, perse, in in this change in in what
you're trying to drive. I thinkthat's so important.
Jim Saliba (34:32):
Yes, yes. So, in my way, I create activities. I have
a 3060 90 day plan and, andthere's probably several
different ones out there and Ihave mine that includes those
timeframes, and kind of swimlanes across of each of my
quadrants. So you're working onall those across time, but I
(34:56):
also put in at the end of each30 days is just the next 30
days, way too often people putplans together, and it kind of
falls apart because we don'tknow how that plan is actually
(35:17):
going to meet the rest of theworld. We have our crystal ball.
And mine just like anybodyelse's is foggy and cracked. And
I can't tell exactly what'sgoing to happen, we're going to
take our best guess. But and weput that in our plan. But when
we put it out into the world,and we start acting it, it may
(35:37):
not go the way we expected. Infact, it probably won't. But
what are we learning from it andto adjust? In fact, we just have
the super bowl right? Both teamswent in with a game plan of what
they were going to do, but playby play, they adjust their game
plan in real time, we should bedoing the exact same thing.
Dustin Steffey (36:05):
I definitely agree with that one. And I'm
glad that you use the Super Bowlanalogy. I mean, you have two
very highly competitive teamsthat have game plans that are
going into it. And I mean, thatgame was an awesome game. I
mean, very close game. So bothgame plans, were well coached,
well executed in my, in my mind.
Jim Saliba (36:25):
Yep. They both went in well prepared, they both went
in with great coaching, theyboth went in with a game plan.
All right. And it could havegone either way, because they
were so close through the entiretime.
Dustin Steffey (36:41):
And that's a big word that is thrown around a
lot, right? execution, executionexecution executing the plan. I
think that's super important.
Jim Saliba (36:53):
Yes. So the plan, executing the plan also must
include learning and adjustingalong the way. Because we put a
plan together with our bestknowledge. And it starts to
change. And we get new data andnew knowledge every day that the
plan is, is in execution. So westart moving and changing it.
(37:16):
I'm not saying change the goal,but you may change and tweak how
you do things, right. Oh, god,it's taking a lot longer than we
thought going this path? Shouldwe take some scope out? Should
we add some more people to it?
What should we do? There'sdifferent things that we can do
to help move the plan along. Orit may be I put this out in the
(37:38):
market, and I thought the marketwas gonna love it. And Lord, and
behold, they didn't? Do I throwit out? That I go the wrong
direction? What do I need to do?
So many companies do what I calldecision by hippo decision by
(38:01):
the highest paid person'sopinion. Or there's value to
that because there's anexperience. But they're not
necessarily the best opinion. Sooften, I see companies spend
millions 10s and hundreds ofmillions of dollars to build a
product, throw it out in themarket and find out they missed
(38:22):
the mark, where if they didsmall experiments along the way,
it would have limit their risk.
And they would have seen somemoney come in in the meantime.
Dustin Steffey (38:36):
I'm wondering all these new things. I liked
that acronym that you just use,because it's so true.
Jim Saliba (38:44):
It is it is by being more flexible, a, what we would
call a business agility. It'shard. It's it's easy to talk
about and harder to do. But thatis one thing that I help
organizations do is how do theydo things in smaller increments,
(39:06):
and limit risks and theirexposure?
Dustin Steffey (39:11):
What would you say in your mind is the most
important topic you're seeingright now, like this day and age
post COVID? Well, I should usethat term loosely post COVID
COVID didn't disappear. But inthis new world right now, what's
the biggest thing that you'reseeing? Or leaders like what's
(39:34):
the biggest opportunity?
Jim Saliba (39:36):
I think leaders need a lot more education early on.
Look at look at it right now.
Between 2022 and the first sixweeks of this year 2023 200,000
jobs were laid off 200,000That's a lot of jobs now and
(39:57):
that two leaders in most ofthese organizations are now
millennials, who never seen arecession in their adult life
and now have to lead through it.
(40:17):
Then add to that, that I don'tgive them leadership training
until 10 years later when theyneed then later than when they
needed it. So I'm calling thatthe perfect storm. And that
couldn't be a problem for a lotof it smaller IT organizations,
the big ones are going to mighthave enough money and things
(40:39):
going on to live through it. Butthe smaller ones are going to
have a problem.
Dustin Steffey (40:44):
Yeah, I see. I see that too. I, my dissertation
was on the different generationsin the workforce, specifically
Baby Boomers to generation, xand y and all of that. And the
biggest thing that I saw was, ifwe're not learning, so I'm a
(41:05):
millennial, if we didn't learnfrom the baby boomers that were
in the workforce that areexiting, or anybody before us,
we really you're gonna strugglequite a bit, because we're
raised around technology. So wethink technology does
everything. And a lot of thesoft skills that were learned in
generations prior to mine arenot the same for millennials,
(41:29):
right? The soft skills aredefinitely different and lacking
in my mind.
Jim Saliba (41:35):
I would agree with that, that the experience is
completely different. We hadtechnology to use as a crutch in
many ways. But the world we livein, is moving significantly
faster for you than it was forme. So the need for those soft
(41:56):
skills and to be able to leadthrough it, I think are more
demanding for you than it wasfor me.
Dustin Steffey (42:05):
I would have to say I agree with that statement.
I definitely agree. Andespecially in a day and age
where technology is quadruplethan what it was back 1015 2030
years ago, a lot of workflowshave changed to where there's a
lot more work added on. Becausewe have technology to be able to
(42:28):
mitigate some of that work to beable to do more, right?
Jim Saliba (42:33):
Yes to do, we can do a lot more because some things
are done for us in technology,it makes it easier. But
sometimes, where we're relyingon it too much, and we don't
understand the concepts that arehappening underneath, and we
make assumptions that areworking against us rather than
(42:57):
for us.
Dustin Steffey (42:59):
Yeah, I'd have to say I agree with that
statement 100%. If there was onekey thing that you would like to
leave with the listeners, so saywe didn't explain any of this,
like we weren't, we weren't on apodcast for an hour, discussing
all this good information. Whatwould that one thing be?
Jim Saliba (43:24):
I believe if you want to grow as a leader,
there's three things that youreally need to focus on. As I
said, self awareness. What'sworking for me, what's not
working for me, what's holdingme back, what fears are holding
me back, because we all have theawareness of what's going on
around me with my employees andso on. Self awareness is one
(43:48):
because it leads you to whatyour needs are. self
development, taking that anddeveloping things that you need
to grow and handle what'shappening. And the third thing
is don't do it alone. You know,we were in the new year, where
(44:08):
everybody's going to the gym,and you say, oh, you should have
a gym buddy to make sure youstay doing it. Well, this is the
same thing. You should havesomebody helping you a mentor, a
coach, somebody to help youbecause there'll be times that
you're going to struggle, andyou need that extra person to
(44:28):
help you through it. That's whyI got into executive coaching to
do exactly that, because I sawthat need to really help people
get to that next level.
Dustin Steffey (44:41):
I think that's some really good solid advice.
And it leads us into a differentconversation as well, which is
advice. You have books, you havea couple of things to help
people out with leadership.
You're a coach, let's talk aboutthat. And let's talk about how
people can enroll your servicesor enroll you to kind of help
(45:01):
them out.
Jim Saliba (45:04):
Okay, that's great.
I kind of put myself on amission to transform the world
of work. And although thatsounds big and bold, when I work
with a leader, and I'm talkingto them, and I see that light
bulb go off on their head andthings clip, I know, I just
changed his world aware, ortheir world of work, and all the
(45:25):
people that work for them. So Ido that at one conversation at a
time, but I figured that wasslow. And I wanted to scale. So
I wrote the book, the six stepleadership challenge. So people
don't necessarily need to talkto me, they can buy the book off
of Amazon, and and try thingsout for themselves. I am
starting to put together aonline course to go with it to
(45:50):
get even more help. And then ofcourse, coaching, we'll help you
even further than that. And forthat, you can get me on my
website, James saliba.com. Oryou can find me on LinkedIn, I'm
very active on LinkedIn, and Irespond to people within within
24 To 48 to 48 hours. If you gothere, you'll see I have some
(46:15):
free webinars happening everycouple of months. So you can
join up there. And I'm also onTwitter, so you can reach me in
those different areas.
Dustin Steffey (46:27):
And again, there's a lot of areas,
obviously, I will put links inthe episode description to help
everyone out with that todefinitely get a hold of and
make sure they can get to theright person. Also, our website
does have your awesome profileon there, which I definitely
encourage everybody to go andread it. I think it's great
(46:48):
profile, in my opinion.
Jim Saliba (46:50):
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Dustin Steffey (46:52):
I appreciate you, my friend. Thank you for
the wonderful conversation, kindof thank you for explaining some
of these differences that Ithink sometimes get lost in
translation. I think that thiswas an important conversation.
And I kind of look forward toseeing kind of how this
conversation drives others aswell.
Jim Saliba (47:12):
Great. Thank you very much for having me. I
really enjoyed having thatdiscussion.
Dustin Steffey (47:18):
Yeah, it's always a fun discussion. I
definitely could be doing thisfor hours upon hours if I wanted
to. Anything else that you wantto leave anyone with before we
let you off the hook?
Jim Saliba (47:31):
No, I think that's great. If you want to talk to
me, find me on LinkedIn or on mywebsite. Email me. I'd love to
have a conversation.
Dustin Steffey (47:40):
Awesome.
Perfect. meet you. I enjoyed ourconversation and this probably
isn't the last time we talk. Sothank you
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