The Wake I Leave with Dr. Joel Rothaizer

Episode Transcript
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Scott Allen (03:19):
Okay, everybody, welcome to Practical Wisdom for
Leaders.
Thank you so much for checkingin wherever you are in the
world.
Today, I'm looking forward tothis conversation.
I have Joel Rothaizer, and heis a psychologist, executive
coach, organizationalconsultant, and leadership
development specialist.
He's board certified inorganizational and business

(03:40):
consulting psychology and amaster certified coach through
the International CoachFederation.
His book on leadership, calledClear Impact: Building
Leadership Capacity, has beenstrongly endorsed by Ken Wilbur.
The head of Integral Zen callsit the most integral book on
leadership he's ever read.
Sir, thank you so much forbeing with me on the podcast

(04:03):
today.
I very, very much appreciateyour time.
What's not in your bio thatpeople should know about you?

Dr. Joel Rothaizer (04:11):
Mostly a marathon runner when my knees
let me.
Also a deep spiritual practice.
I always I always feel likewhenever I hand somebody my Vita
that the underside is thespiritual practice part that you
don't write about, but itinforms everything that I do.
Oh, wonderful.

So marathoning and spirit and do they ever kind of
coalesce the marathon runningand the spiritual practice?

Um, toward the end of the marathon, I don't
think I'm meditating.
I think I'm just dissociating.

So I don't think so.
Joel, I ran one half marathon,and it was the most humbling
experience because I'm I'm I seethe finish line.
And as I'm kind of comingtowards the finish line, the
eight-year-old runs past me.
Yes.
The 89-year-old dogs past me.
I get it.

(05:02):
Yeah.

Yeah.
I mean, at my best, I'm a slugwith endurance.
I can get to the end, but I'min the back of the pack, back
10%.

Uh but you're doing it.
You're doing it.
That's awesome.
I don't have a great friend whojust ran Berlin.
And uh, so it was fun to hearabout his experiences.
So well, I I'm excited for theconversation.
Uh obviously, you have thebook, and we can talk about that
a little bit.
But you know, you had reachedout and said, Hey, I'd like to I
think I think I have somethings to contribute.
I think you'd been listening tosome of these conversations

(05:35):
with Jonathan Reims.
For listeners, if you have notlistened to those episodes, it
may be good to do so.
Episodes 300 through 302, uhthree-part series with Jonathan,
kind of us exploring andthinking through leader
development.
And so uh I mean, I'd love tokind of see where you want to
start the conversation.

Well, I didn't even know the podcast
existed until a little whileago.
And I've been devouring it,I've really been enjoying it.
And in a lot of the episodes, Iwant to raise my hand and go, I
know how to do that, or I havesomething to add, or yeah, you
talked about polarities, but Ihave something that's a nuance.
So um, and I think morerecently you were talking about

(06:22):
what are the really practicalways to make this stuff real?
Not to just talk about it, notthe academic stuff, but the in
the trenches with leaders whoare seriously busy, how do you
help them build capacity?

Yes, I mean, that that's really where a lot of my
interest is right now.
I mean, Joel, I I've had fiveyears of conversations,
primarily with academics, PhDs.
Of course, there's been allkinds of guests, but but as I
have left full-time academia andI'm with practitioners more and

(06:56):
more often, I really aminterested.
How do we be helpful now, inthe moment, and how do we better
prepare folks to do this work?
And so, yes, that has been verymuch on my mind.
And so I look forward to theconversation.

Yeah, and I feel like my sweet spot has been
kind of the integral, vertical,in the trenches stuff.
Yeah.
And how do you everything thatI do is intrically informed or
developmentally modeledinformed, I guess.
Um, but how do you do thingsthat are short and seem simple

(07:31):
but are surprisingly powerful inbuilding capacity?
Love it, love it.
And again, capacity defined ashigher levels of complexity in
thinking and acting.
So let me tell you about lastFriday.
Okay.
So I went to one of those CEOgroups, you know, with

(07:53):
like-minded, you know, peers,and I had an hour and a half to
try to create some value.
And I put up a developmentalchart, and I very briefly
described vertical developmentas more focusing on how you
think instead of just what youthink about.

(08:14):
Um I brought in um heroicleadership as I was kind of very
briefly, I did a very brief runthrough the scale using the
Bill Joyner versions of thedifferent stages.

Okay.

And then I started with a tool called the
Wake I Leave or The Wake YouLeave.
And and I what I said wasparticularly when you're a
senior leader, certainly thisgroup of CEOs, you leave a huge
wake in every interaction.
Wow.
And there's two questions thatare really relevant.

(08:58):
The first question is what kindof a wake did you leave?
Did you leave the person alittle more enthusiast,
inspired, feeling safe,trusting, clear?
Or did you leave them moreanxious, confused, wanting to
find another job?
But the second question, whichis more relevant, is did you

(09:18):
even notice?

Yes.

And we'll talk about the City of
Edmonton's leadership programlater.
But this was the first activitywe gave people for reflection
is can you even notice theimpact you're having on people?
Because to do that, you have towake up.
Um and all the practices that Ihave are little ways to be very

(09:42):
intentional and mindfulthroughout the day that don't
take time, they take intention.
Um and so I talked in the groupa bit about what kind of wake
would you like to leave onpeople, and then had people talk
about what's one thing youcould do to make that happen
more likely, to leave a positivewake.

(10:03):
I also mentioned I work with alot of military leaders.
That's one of my little nicheareas.
And I was working with ageneral two or three years ago,
and I introduced the termincoming human.
Um, and they love that, theidea that every time the phone
rings, every time there's avideo call, every time somebody
walks in my door, there's anincoming human.

(10:25):
Incoming.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, it's like you know,because I watched MASH when I
was a kid, so that's you know,yeah, and I'm about to have an
impact on that person.
So this isn't just a businessconversation.
This isn't just an update on aproject.
I'm about to impact a humanbeing.
Yeah.
And they love that and theypass that down to their

(10:48):
colonels, to the majors, um, asa very practical way to be
present in the moment and justunderstand the impact you have.
Yeah.
And you know, as you know,because I've heard people talk
about it on your wonderfulpodcast, perspective taking, but
particularly compassionateperspective taking, is the

(11:08):
leadership superpower, at leastone of the few.
And so if I'm actually thinkingabout you and how I'm impacting
you, I have to be present, Ihave to be off-task mode and
also into human mode.
And then I was talking in thegroup about how do you even
notice the impact you had?

(11:29):
Because you really have to beawake to watch facial
expressions, body language.
Um so that was the first piece,and people really like that.
Again, very practical.
Love it.
Um, the second one is avariation on that, but it's a
little more specific.
And this is the one where if Ican only introduce one practice

(11:49):
to leaders right now out of allthe stuff that I've developed,
it would be this one.
Okay.
Um, drum roll.
I well, I loved the first one,so I'm on edge, yes.
It's 30 seconds before everyinteraction.
Ask yourself two questions.
The first is what's my goal forthis interaction?

(12:11):
But I want there to be twoparts to that: a task goal and a
people goal.
Okay.
So the task goal might be Iwant an update on that project.
I want to know if you call thatperson.
The people goal, and again,this relates to the first one,
is very specific.
What do you want the experienceof that person to be at the end

(12:31):
of your interaction?
Whether it's a two-minuteinteraction or an hour
interaction, when it's over,what do you want their
experience to be?
And then what's one thing youcould do that you wouldn't do
automatically to make that morelikely?
Yeah.
So that's the 30 secondsbefore.
Then you have the interaction.
Hopefully, you're mindful ofthat one thing you wanted to do

(12:54):
differently.
And then the really importantthing at the end of the meeting
is don't grab your phone andlook at what messages you
missed.
Take 30 more seconds and askyourself, what did I intend?
What did I do?
What did I notice?
And if you actually had theimpact you wanted to have,
celebrate that for a moment.

(13:14):
If you didn't have that impact,it's a learning moment.
Huh.
I wanted to have this impact.
I wonder why I didn't.
So then it's an opportunity toreflect.
And what I know is that everyleader I have that I work with
who has done this practiceregularly finds it it catapults
their leadership ability.

(13:35):
Wow.
Because you have to be presentto do it.
You have to be thinking aboutyour impact on people, you have
to be practicing doing somethingdifferent.
And the something differentcould be as simple as I'm going
to make eye contact.
Yeah.
I'm going to call you by yourname.
I'm going to ask one curiousquestion that I wouldn't
normally ask.
Or even when you're talkingabout a problem, I'm not going

(13:57):
to see you as a problem to besolved.
I'm going to ask a bit moreabout your perspective on it.
Something little.

Yep.

And so it's uh goal plan action reflection.
And I call it an integrativecycle of learning.
Goal plan action reflection.
Yeah.
Okay.
Um and like I said, everyleader I've worked with who does
this has found it reallypowerful.
Um, I was working with oneleader, an engineering guy, and

(14:26):
he said, you know, I can't notdo that.
Now that it's my habit, even ifI forget to do it, I do it in
my head right at the beginning.
And so then, and I chose mywords really deliberately.
I said, So now when are yougoing to demand that all of your
direct reports do the samepractice?
Wow.
And he said, demand.
And I said, Hell yeah.

(14:48):
Um you know, you demand thatthey increase their engineering
ability, you demand that theyincrease their certification,
they're all leaders.
Why wouldn't why why can't youdemand that they get better as
leaders?

Yeah.

So again, it's a cascading effect.

Yep.
Well, and if we have severallayers of the organization who
even if we have several layersof the organization who even 60%
of the time, 50% of the timeare engaging in that work,
right?
We are to your point, to useyour word, catapulting forward.
The learning is captured.

(15:27):
And like you, what I see a lotof is people pinging from one
thing to another, surviving theday.
And to your point, there'sthere's very little
intentionality going in.
There's very little presence inthe moment of how, and I think
Jonathan described that, youknow, your your inner state is

(15:48):
going to shine, it's gonna show,whatever that is.
And you know, even you know, aphysiological side of and just
kind of centering yourself alittle bit, yeah, can be uh an
intervention, another littlesimple, and and these are the
things, Joel, that I'minterested in.
I mean, these almost littlemicro interventions that can

(16:10):
align with the flow of the day,can align with the work, quote
unquote.
But if we can help individuals,and I loved that phrasing,
incoming human, you know, okay,there's a I know what I need to
do to get myself present forwhat the work that's about to
happen right now, right?

Right.

That's beautiful.

And so yeah, and so in the room, I had
people pair up and think aboutsome upcoming conversation they
were gonna have that they wantedto be more mindful about.
And I intentionally said itcould be personal, could be
business, any area.
And someone actually brought upwhat you just said.
Um, what happens if I'm toofrazzled?

(16:54):
And and I use Dan Siegel'swindow of tolerance.
I think it's a nice simpleterm.
And I think it was DanielGoldman who said a leader's
first job is to manage their ownnervous system.

Yeah.

Oh wow.
And so I I brought that in, andpeople really like that as an
add-on.
I hadn't planned on doing thatpiece, but it we just went into
that.
And so people were talkingabout the impact they wanted to
have on people and what theycould do.
And the dialogue, and thisalmost always happens, went to

(17:30):
family as well.

Oh, yes.
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,yes.
And that's over and over andover, I'm seeing that,
especially if I introduce theconcept of because that quote
that I'll always use in mypodcast episodes, you know, who
you are is how you lead.
I think you could say who youare is how you parent.
Who are you?
And if others are in your care,who you are matters a lot.

Yeah.
I I've had the same kind oftagline for a long time of
better humans make betterleaders.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there's an add-on to thispractice, which is on your way
home, if you're actually drivinghome, or if you're going
upstairs from your basementoffice, but if you're driving,

(18:13):
stop half a block from yourhouse, pull over, and ask
yourself, what impact do I wantto have on my family when I walk
in the door?
Wow.
And what might make that morelikely?
Because a lot of them realizethey walk in and they just walk
right past people.
Or, you know, I was workingwith a general who would be gone

(18:34):
for a month, and then he'd walkin, and the first thing he'd
say was, Who left their shoes inthe hallway?

That can happen to me.
I mean, Joel, one reallyinteresting thing is that, and
my wife and I have talked aboutthis on our walks.
You know, I I think I said toyou before we started recording,
I got home last night atmidnight, slept.
My wife and I got up at 5:30,we walked.
And um, you know, I I've beenleaving and re-entering more.

(19:05):
And sometimes what I show upwith when I re-enter isn't the
tone I want to set, right?
Right.
It might be just some silly,dumb comment like that.
That in the grand scheme ofthings, who the hell cares?
That's not the first thingpeople should hear.
But it's it at times it hasbeen the first thing that comes
out of my mouth.

(19:25):
And so, right?
I mean, it's I so I love that,you know, just that intention of
okay, how do I want to show upand getting myself prepared?
Otherwise, that other thing,whatever that is, just takes
over.
Does that make sense?

Of course, totally.
And you know, that that newentry in the house could could
be as simple as I love you, I'mhappy to see you, I've got to
decompress for a few minutes.
Yeah.
But that's fine.

Yeah.
But there's, you know, you'renot going to be able to do out
of date with you know, who whatdumbass left their shoes there?
That's not the that's not thetone.

And so then the conversation got into
because I I tended to snap myfingers, like, wake up.
Wake up.
And the person was saying,Well, how do you remember to do
that?
And so we talked in there for awhile about I think the minimum
structure for actual change issetting intentions every morning

(20:27):
about who we want to be and howwe want to impact other humans.
Yeah.
And at the end of the day,taking a few minutes and asking,
How did I do from a veryself-compassionate place?
Yeah.
Not the inner critic, but um,from self-compassion.
That's the minimum becausechange is really not sexy.
It's not going to a weekendworkshop with loud music and

(20:50):
strobe lights.
It's but the reality is, man,it's not sexy.
It's little moments of actionand reflection over and over
again.
And that's how our brainschange, and that's how we get
new patterns.
Yep.
So the question is, how do Iremember to do that?
And so my minimum thing is oneis setting intentions in the

(21:11):
morning.
And I have a great hack forthat.
This worked for me for years,which is I'm not allowed to look
at my phone until I setintentions.
Nice.
And I'm adamant about that.
So before because as soon asyou open your phone, you're
screwed.

You're you're hijacked, yeah.

Yeah.
Whether it's the news feed oryour emails or your texts.
But what if the first thing youdid was, who do I really want
to be today?
And at the end of the day, whenI look back, what would I love
to say about who I was?
And how did I impact all thehumans around me?
Yeah.

Well, and it's it's these micro interventions.
Sometimes it's a quote,Jonathan's quote of, you know,
leaders create the weather, orsome of the quotes that you've
that you, the leader's first jobis to manage their nervous
system.
I mean, you know, that maybethat's not the the sexiest of
quotes, but it's a powerful,it's a powerful visual.

(22:09):
But it's these these microinterventions and these, I don't
know that they're mantras, butthey're they're quotes or
there's ways of thinking that wecan hold on to that leaders
create the weather, parentscreate the weather.
When I say that in in largegroups, you know, there I was
with a group yesterday, they'relike, You're the weather guy.

(22:31):
You know, Jonathan said that,but you know, whatever.
You can call me the weatherguy.
I'm glad you remember it,right?
Because it's critical.
But there's those stickythings, whether it's a saying or
a mantra or a quote or a or ahabit, micro habit, that that
have the ability to transform.
I think it's when we make, youknow, there's this great uh

(22:54):
fellow Canadian of yours, DrewDudley.
I don't know if you've everseen his TED Talk.
Um it's a beautiful TED talk.
It's like seven and a halfminutes.
It's Drew Dudley.
I'll put a link in the shownotes.
But he talks about how we'vemade made leadership this big,
huge thing about changing theworld.

(23:14):
Right.
And and he thinks that you knowthat's that's a that's a
disservice.
And so it's it's about ourhumanity with one another.
We can control that and we canand we can exist in that way,
and we can make a difference inour small way, and it's a
beautiful TED talk.
Um, but yes, I mean, I'm sohappy that we're having this

(23:38):
conversation because it's theseand other little micro
interventions that can quicklyshift perspective.
Does that make sense?

Oh, totally.
In fact, I'll give you thethird one that I did because
that was again on Friday.

Yeah, more.
Look at this, man.

What do you just well?
You know, the the weird thingis, you know, I've been here in
Edmonton, Alberta.
It's not exactly the, you know,I'm not sitting in Boulder,
Colorado, or San Francisco, orBoston or New York.
And so, you know, I've justdone what I do, and then now and
then I go, oh, other people aredoing the same stuff.

(24:13):
But but this is what this iswhat I live and breathe.
So the third one, third one Ireally like to, it's one of my
favorite three or four that Ido.
I start out saying, wouldn'tyou agree that whoever you
report to, and even if you're aCEO, you still report to a
board.
Yeah.
Yeah.
People think CEOs have all thefreedom, they don't.
No.

(24:33):
I say, wouldn't you agree thatthe person you report to is
co-responsible for how you showup?
That whether you are doing wellin your work has a lot to do
with them.
And they say, yeah.
And I say, what are some ways?
Um, coaching they provide ornot, scheduling meetings, do

(24:54):
they show up or not?
Um, protecting me from too muchwork or not, having my back if
I do the right thing, butsomeone higher up is angry about
it.
And so then I say, So wouldn'tyou then agree that you that you
are co-responsible for theperform with the performance of

(25:15):
all of your direct reports?
Yeah.
And they a little bit moregrudgingly say, Yeah.
And then I and then I say, butyour way of having performance
dialogues and performancemanagement ignores that fact.
You sit with somebody likeyou're giving them a report

(25:36):
card.
How are you doing?
I'm talking about yourperformance.
But you have as much to do withtheir performance as they do,
maybe more.
Yes.
And so this is the subtle tweakthat changes everything.
What if the first thing you sayis, this is about how we are

(25:56):
doing together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is about how we as a dyad,me as your manager, me as your
leader, that's what we'retalking about today.
And I ask people in the room,how would that change the entire
dialogue?

Oh, Joel, you're blowing my mind right now, sir.
I mean, I I love it.
That but but that that isexactly what I'm talking about.
That subtle shift changes somuch.

So much.
Yes.
Exactly.
That one sentence, thatdifferent start, changes
everything.
And where the leader says, Irecognize I'm co-responsible for
how you're doing.

Well, yes.
I mean, you can go to like, youknow, family systems theory,
uh, where yeah, it's veryconvenient to pick on Jimmy as
the problem, but you know, thesystem's the system.

Oh, I know.

Usually some other things going on, you know,
that's facilitating some ofJimmy's behavior, right?
You know?

Oh, yeah.
This is an aside, but I don'tremember who it was because I I
also do clinical psychology.
I have the whole range.
And there was this amazingintervention somebody did around
parents whose kids areself-harming in some ways,
cutting.
And he sits with the parentsand he says, When Jimmy or Sally

(27:16):
are up in their room thinkingabout hurting themselves, why
aren't they talking to you?

Yes.

And, you know, what an amazing, like
confrontive, powerful question.

And and in a potentially, you know, unhealthy
way, they are communicatingwith you.
Yes, communicates.
There's a message there.
That yes, that behavior, right?
I mean, yeah, not that allparents are at fault or causing,
but but there's it's at leastin a critical question to
reflect upon, right?

(27:52):
My gosh.

So I'll give you one more.
I didn't do this one on Friday,but Friday was great because
people love that.
I gave them time to practice,to pair up, to reflect on
things.
So on this one, I had themthink about a direct report
who's doing really well andshare with a partner how am I
co-responsible for them doing sowell.
And then to also think aboutsomebody who wasn't doing so

(28:17):
well and how might they beco-responsible for that.
And then somebody asked, well,how about holding them
accountable?
And I said, you can still holdthem accountable.
You can still fire somebody.
Oh, yeah.
But but you at least are havingthis conversation.
You know, and in fact, we weretalking about that goal, plan,
action, reflection.
And I said, you could have agoal for a talk to be, I want

(28:40):
the person to understand thattheir job is in danger, that
there is a serious gap in theirperformance.
And I want them to know that Ihave their back.
I want them to be successful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that would be a great, youknow, 30 seconds before.
I want to make sure they'rereally clear how serious this
is, and I want to let them knowI'm there for them.

(29:02):
I want them to succeed.
If they don't, they don't.
But if you also say, and let'stalk about how we're doing
together, is there anything Icould be doing to make it easier
for you to succeed?
Is there anything in theorganization that's getting in
the way of you succeeding?
It's it's again a differentdialogue.

Well, you know, you you've made me you've made me
think in some ways.
Um so we can go down this roadfor for a little bit.
We don't have to if you're notinterested in this pathway.
But you know, just somethingI've been observing and thinking
about recently, I did not growup in a particularly uh

(29:44):
faith-filled home.
So so religion was not asignificant part of my my life.
I was confirmed Lutheran, butreally my parents didn't attend,
and it just wasn't.
But one one observation I haveis that as large factions of
society have as the size of thechurch has decreased, at least

(30:10):
in the United States, membershipparticipation has people's time
on Sunday mornings to pause,reflect, hear a message, be in
community.
I I think that has an impact onus as humans.
I think it has a very realimpact.
And um, so when you had talkedabout your spiritual practice, I

(30:35):
mean, I think that grounding,whatever that practice is, that
grounding, that pausing, whetherthat was through prayer or
stating intentions, I think it'sfundamental to us as human
beings.
And I think prayer is a form ofthat.
I think meditation can be aform of that.
But as scrolling, and to yourpoint, the advice takes over

(31:00):
first thing in the morning, wejust get sucked in and we're
just on autopilot all day long.
And so I love how some of thesepractices here that you've
talked about, even in 30seconds, are recent us into a
place where we can be uh ourbest self in that moment.

(31:20):
Uh you we have the bestpotential to be our best self in
that moment.

Right.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, I agree.
And it reminded me one of thewhen you were one of the times
we had Jennifer Garvey Bergerand you were talking about,
well, she was talking aboutconnection.
Yeah.
That was one of those times Iwanted to raise my hand.
Yeah.
Uh something we came to overtime.
Um, we probably won't get to itall today, but when we were

(31:46):
doing the City of Edmonton'sleadership program for the top
800 leaders, we got to havebasically 30 cohorts of 30
people each.
Wow.
And so got the opportunity toreally hone curriculum, what
actually works.
So we probably won't get topolarities today, but I first
did polarities the way it saidin the book, and it did not

(32:07):
work.
And then I found ways that did.
So but one of the things thathappened was at first we'd had
people gather at tables.
We we formed people in cohortsof four to five.
They needed to not know eachother to be from totally
different areas.
So you have, you know, a copand someone who mows the lawn in

(32:32):
the parks, and somebody who'sin finance, and they're all
because we wanted them to getthat leadership is leadership,
even though they're working invery different cultures and
contexts.
The the essence of leadershipis one thing.
And we'd have them start out inthe morning and say, just talk
about what you've been applyingfrom what we talked about last

(32:53):
time.
And then we'd call on tables.
And at first we we had that bea short period of time.
It ended up being the first twoto three hours.
Oh wow.
And the reason was that firstyou get into people don't
believe you if you're the guy infront of the room or the woman
in front of the room talkingabout stuff.

(33:15):
But if they hear a peer triedsomething and it worked.
There was an early adopter,they go, Wow, I find this really
interesting.
And because they were talkingabout what challenges they were
facing at work, first, like thisgoes back to what you were
saying.
How often do leaders have an anopen, vulnerable place to just

(33:36):
go, I don't know how to workwith somebody, or I'm struggling
with my boss, or because therewas a huge kind of cone of
safety in the room.
What we learned was that wewould use that to build in
curriculum real time and to evenadd new pieces of curriculum
with talking about what peoplewere actually struggling with in

(33:56):
the moment.
So it was just in time kind ofstuff.
It was real.
It wasn't theoretical.
We never did case studies.
And so somebody would bebringing up an issue, and my
partner might go up to a levelof development chart and say,
how would a conformer look atthis?
How would an expert see this?
How would an achiever?
How would a catalyst?

(34:18):
I might go up and do a polaritymap, and then we might weave in
whatever the new curriculum wasof the day.
But it became this wonderful,organic way people could share
with each other and hear eachother's struggles and
challenges.
And again, to me, case studiesdon't make sense because here
you have real stuff going on.

(34:38):
Yes.
Yeah, you have real casestudies.
Like yeah, yeah.

Where people have some skin in the game, literally
their skin.

Totally.

Well, but I love I love the fact.
And so in real time, you'readjusting, you're you're
connecting with your partner andsaying, okay, what do you
think?
Where and I love that becauseit's a little more like jazz.
There's some improv there.
There's meeting the room wherethey are.
And I'm not gonna let's, youknow, I was with a group on
Saturday, and I looked at my myclient partner and I said, I can

(35:16):
march through the PowerPointslides right now if you'd like
me to, or we can go down thispath, which it seems is where
their energy is.
And and finish out with somesome really meaningful
conversations based on wherethey are.
And thankfully, my partner waslike, Yes, please do that.
You know, they're they'rehungry for that conversation.
So yeah, I love it.

And fortunately, we were both like
that.
We were just wanting to riffoff each other.
And whenever I have an agenda,I always start out saying, I'm
not gonna follow this.
And I don't know when I'm gonnago off script, but there's no
way I'm gonna do this, and theorder is presented right now.
This is to make you feel betterthat I'm prepared.

(35:59):
Well, it's because we're in therealm of complexity.
You can't, you know.
I mean, if you're going throughthings, you can't be giving
people what they need.
Yeah.
And so I even told them onFriday, again, I only had an
hour and a half.
I said, I'm planning threetools.
I'm sure I'll be bringing othertools in I didn't think about
based on the dialogue becauseI'm not a talking head.

(36:21):
I'm a practical, in thetrenches, leadership guy.
Let's talk for real.
Yeah, love it.
Yeah, I'll give you one more ifwe have time.
This was this was actually thestickiest one that I came up
with.
We'd show a picture of a pondon a beautiful day.
There's some koi in thereswimming around.
And then I'd say, if some ofthose fish started swimming

(36:45):
erratically or turned upsidedown, as in dying, would you
blame the fish?
And people laugh and go, no,you know, toxic runoff,
nutrients, whatever.
And then I'd say, okay, if youthen went to the fish store and
you bought the best new fish andput them in the same pond, what
would happen?
Well, they would die off too.
And then my punchline is that'snot how you manage a

(37:07):
performance.
When somebody is struggling intheir role, your first question
isn't what is it in the pondthat's getting in their way?
You first point to the personand go, bad fish.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so the term that I coinedwas pond thinking.

(37:29):
Where pond thinking is aconceptual habit of looking for
root cause of organizationalbehavior, not within the person,
but within the culture itself.
Yeah, the system.
You know, clarity of roles,goals, everything.

Yeah.
And that's where that's so Imean, I use the phrase
self-serving bias, where youknow, it's easy to it's easy for
me to see the foibles in thosethree people or in the team, but
I struggle to see what I own inthat dysfunction or what I own
in, you know.
Oh, I'm always cancelingmeetings, I'm always a little

(38:07):
disorganized.
I'm never really all thatclear.
I'm not specific.
I didn't set SMART goals,whatever it is, it's hard for me
to see that.
Right.
I'm blind to it much of theday, but it's easy for me to see
what they're not doing anddifficult for me to see how I'm
contributing to thatdysfunction.
It's fascinating.

Yeah.
Well, and then that ended upbeing, like I said, the
stickiest thing that I came upwith.
Because it became language thatlasted for years after we left,
where somebody would say, Yeah,my direct report is just
screwing up.
And someone else would say,Sounds like you're bad fishing.
Um, can we try pond thinking?

Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's like that, right?
I mean, catchy.
Yeah, it's it is, it's catchy,and I love the story to set it
up and the metaphor that makesperfect sense.
And then, you know, I I I hadreleased a pod uh a post on
LinkedIn today, which kind ofthe premise of it was, you know,

(39:10):
eight types of difficultemployees.
But then I switch it around alittle bit and just assert, you
know, these individuals are anopportunity for you to practice.
And, you know, they're they'reholding up a mirror,
potentially.
And what can you do to adjustyour style, or what can you do

(39:32):
to support them and enter intothe the kind dialogue or the the
the conversation to coach?
And um again, all of these areso fascinating.
And I love the fact, I mean, Ijust I love these interventions,
Joel.
I really, really do.
I mean This is another thingthat's rumbling around in my

(39:52):
head, and you've talked aboutthis, and it sounds like you're
doing this.
I had a guest on a while back,and and he said something to the
effect of if I'm doing all thework, I'm doing it wrong.
And I think at times in myleader development programming,
I find myself being on andthey're not doing the work.

(40:14):
What I love about theseinterventions, not only are they
they are what's the word I'mlooking for?
I'm not looking for simplistic.
It's not simple, they aren'tsimplistic, they are they're
complex.
They're they're a light lift,so to speak, in some ways.

But there's but but in a way, in a way, it's
a Trojan horse.

Yes, yes, and but it's a it's a gold mine, right?
Yeah for conversation.
If if on those couple questionspeople are going for an hour,
yes, right?
They're hungry for thatdialogue, they're they're hungry
for that community, they'rehungry for those thinking
partners.
I've noticed that, especiallymaybe it's just me, but since
the pandemic, putting people inthat community, they really

(40:56):
enjoy that that time to connectbecause I think they don't have
it very often.
But you know, theseinterventions are powerful,
they're like awin-win-win-win-win.
They're powerful, they're alight lift from a facilitation
standpoint.
They meet the participantswhere they are.

(41:16):
I mean, it's just I love howyou're thinking.
Thanks.
I really do.
I appreciate that.
Okay.
Yes, we if if you're open toit, we have another date to talk
polarities.
Definitely.
Would love to.
Okay, okay.

By the way, I'll I'll say one last thing,
just based on what you justsaid.
Yeah.
We did an activity.
Some consultant had a two bytwo grid, low and high
engagement, and low and highcritical thinking.
And he had names for each oneof the people.
So, like um, low criticalthinking, high engagement was a
brown noser.

(41:55):
Okay.
Um, other people were, youknow, like disengaged.
And first we made those verbsbecause they said this is not a
quality of a human, this is whatsomebody is doing.
Yeah.
But then the activity we hadwas what could happen in an
organization that would leadsomebody to act this way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so that was leaders aroundthe table, all you know, how do

(42:19):
we disengage people?
How do we put people inpositions where they brown
those?
Because you know.
So it's again getting leadersthinking about that stuff.

Yep.
And and and you know, thinkingabout the system and the pond
and what's in the pond thatmight be making people sick,
quote unquote.

Totally.
Totally.

Because if you if you if you drink from tainted
water, you're gonna get sick.
Well, I I always close out byasking guests what they've been
listening to, reading,streaming, what's caught your
attention in recent times.
It could have to do with whatwe've just discussed, it might
have nothing to do with whatwe've just discussed, but what

(43:03):
might uh listeners be interestedin, sir?

Sure.
Jonathan may have mentionedDaniel Brown, Dan Brown, not the
guy that wrote CelestineProphecy, but Daniel P.
Brown.
Okay.
Who was he an amazing mentorfor me.
Oath he was this I don't knowhow he did all this in one
lifetime, but he was a verydistinguished psychologist.

(43:27):
He uh was at Harvard MedSchool, he was a world expert in
trauma and attachment.
Um he was involved in some ofthe highest profile cases around
child sexual abuse.
And he probably knew more aboutthe subtle stages of meditation
than anybody alive.

(43:48):
So he was a very profoundEastern practical practitioner.
And he used he died two yearsago, but in I think in Newton in
the Boston area, Wednesdaynight, he used to have these
improv nights when people wouldshow up and they could just ask
him anything.
And those were pretty recentlytranscribed into three volumes.

(44:09):
And what's amazing aboutlistening to Dan is someone will
say, How do you buildcompassion or how do you deal
with grief?
And he'll say, Well, let megive you the Western version,
and now let me give you theEastern version, and now let me
kind of weave those together.
And he was this masterful depthof wisdom.

(44:30):
And so um the series is calledCloudless Mind.
There are three volumes of it,it's on Amazon and everywhere
else, and he's just a treasure.

Wow, okay.
I'm intrigued.
That's very, very cool.
I love that.
Well, Joel, thank you so muchfor your time to get today.
I really, really appreciate it.
I know that listeners are gonnaget so much from that
conversation, and and again, I Ilook forward to another
conversation, diving in a littlebit to polarities and what

(45:07):
you've learned in that space.
Another topic I really findfascinating.
So uh, you know what?
I will be in touch.

I I look forward to it.
Okay, be well.

Thank you.

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