March 4, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode of The Better Leadership Team Show, I sit down with Dr. James Pogue, CEO of JP Enterprises, a professional services firm with a global clientele focused on strengthening the connections between Leaders and Teams, which lead to increased Innovation, Creativity, Production, and Profits. JP Enterprises works closely with Leaders who are driving transformational change, helping them align people, plans and processes with Vision and Purpose.
We dive deep into why trust and meaningful connections are the foundation of great leadership teams. We discuss the power of authenticity, respect, and vulnerability in leadership, the challenges of building trust in polarized workplaces, and the most common "wobbles" that disrupt team cohesion.
If you’re a leader looking to strengthen your team and create a more connected, innovative workplace, this episode is for you!
Connect with Dr. James Pogue:
Website: jamespogue.com
Connection Quotient Assessment: getmycq.com
Thanks for listening! Connect with us at mike-goldman.com/blog and on Instagram@mikegoldmancoach and on YouTube @Mikegoldmancoach
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-20 (00:01):
what comes to my mind is this idea of
being deeply and meaningfullyconnected.
our ability to be authentic, ourability to be transparent, our
ability to drive our ideas andour vision, or if we happen to
be one of the team members tohear the vision of the leader to
allow ourselves to be open tothat is based upon this
foundation of connection.
(00:23):
And there are things that get inthe way.
Of this foundation of connectionand those wobbles as I call them
can preclude me from being ableto hear what it is you're trying
to get me to understand thevision you're trying to get me
to see the direction we'retrying to go and all the why's
behind it.
Mike Goldman (00:48):
You made it to the better leadership team show, the
place where you learn how tosurround yourself with the right
people, doing the right things.
So you can grow your businesswithout losing your mind.
I'm your host and leadershipteam coach, Mike Goldman.
I'm going to show you how toimprove top and bottom line
growth, fulfillment, and thevalue your company adds to the
(01:08):
world by building a betterleadership team.
All right, let's go.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_1 (01:21):
Dr.
James Pogue is the CEO of JPEnterprises, a professional
services firm with a globalclientele focused on
strengthening the connectionsbetween leaders and teams, which
lead to increased innovation,creativity, production, and
profits.
JP Enterprises works closelywith leaders who are driving
(01:42):
transformational change, helpingthem align people, plans, and
processes with vision andvision.
Dr.
James Pogue, welcome to theshow.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (01:52):
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate the invite.
Appreciate being here with you.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025 (01:55):
Yeah, really excited, about this.
we were introduced to eachother, through, through someone,
who, Dwayne Farley, who I trust,very much kind of got me started
in, working with a group calledVistage, which has been
incredible for me.
So any friend of Dwayne's is anautomatic friend of mine.
So I warned James before this,there's only one right answer to
(02:17):
this next question, so I hope hegets it right.
if not, we're going to have toend the show early, but, James,
from all of your experience,what do you believe is the
number one most importantcharacteristic of a great
leadership team?
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (02:31):
Well, you know, I'm glad you gave me a
little bit of a heads up becauseI was going to go one direction
was really focused on theleader, but to your point, the
team is a different piece.
And I like the, I'm going toland on this idea of trust.
trust built upon meaningfulconnections between the leaders
and that they are that allowsthem to be able to push and pull
and require and expect greatthings out of one another and to
(02:54):
know that I'm pulling and I'mpushing you and I'm poking you
and I'm driving you not becauseI'm a knucklehead not because I
don't care, but because ourobligation is to provide great
service, either to our clientsto our members to whomever, and
that we trust one another thatthe idea of trust of doing that
is more important than me makingyou feel uncomfortable, than me
(03:17):
scratching you, than me, sortof, you know, you pet a dog the
wrong way, and it's like, oh mygoodness, that, that didn't feel
like, that didn't feel great.
But it's, I'm doing it for thepurposes of us being great, and
us being able to push and pullone another, and being able to
trust one another, slash expectof one another,tThat in order
for us to be great, you willmake me feel uncomfortable and
(03:37):
that's going to be okay.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025 (03:39):
Thank God you gave one of the right
lie.
There's not one right answer,but you gave one of them.
So you get to stay on the showand that's great.
so of course, I mean, and thatis what we're going to drive
into today.
Every, everything I want to talkabout with you, because you are
the expert in building thoseconnections between leaders and
their teams.
So let's take your answer anddrive deeper to talk to me, all
(04:02):
the things you said, you know,why is it.
So important that there is thatstrong connection between
leaders and the teams versus,Hey, if I got good, smart people
that are going to do what I tellthem to do, that's all I need.
Why is that connection soimportant?
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (04:19):
Well, the challenge here becomes this
idea that what, why are we here,right?
Why are we here?
are we just here to producewidgets and produce them faster
and better and stronger?
Like, why are we here?
And the leader, the primaryleader, the CEO, the chairman of
the board, has developed avision.
that they're trying to push andpull the team to execute on.
(04:42):
And In order for that vision tobe transferred for them to
understand it, we have to beable to one be transparent and
be authentic and all of thesewonderful terms and words.
But as I've been struggling toas I continue to struggle to
smarter and better at this work,I tried to use the simplest
words possible.
Like if I can explain it to afifth grader, then by golly, the
(05:04):
CEO of any organization ought tobe able to understand it.
And so when I locked myself in aroom with me and a marker and a
whiteboard, what came to my mindover and over again, what comes
to my mind is this idea of beingdeeply and meaningfully
connected.
our ability to be authentic, ourability to be transparent, our
ability to drive our ideas andour vision, or if we happen to
(05:25):
be one of the team members tohear the vision of the leader to
allow ourselves to be open tothat is based upon this
foundation of connection.
And there are things that get inthe way.
Of this foundation of connectionand those wobbles as I call them
can preclude me from being ableto hear what it is you're trying
to get me to understand thevision you're trying to get me
(05:47):
to see the direction we'retrying to go and all the why's
behind it.
So we can identify thosewobbles.
Turn the temperature down onthem or use them to pull us
together.
Then we have a much strongeropportunity to be successful.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_11 (06:03):
So I want to dig into those
wobbles, but before we do justto dig a little deeper on that
word connection, if I'm a leaderof a team, I've got my team
around me, does connection mean,you know, we all have to like
each other, we all have to befriends with each other, or
could you be connected tosomeone?
(06:24):
Feel, feel that what you callthe, you know, deep, meaningful
connection.
Could you feel that for someoneyou don't like very much?
Like where does like, andfriendship, interact with
connection
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (06:36):
Yeah, I think that it comes down to
these two words that I go backand forth with a lot.
respect and love or respect andlove slash like, and then which
one would, which one works,which one should we be
leveraging?
And, the answer is both, youknow, in the initial business
context, you know, I'm hired byyou.
I don't know you to really likeyou.
I just know that I respect youand I want to work for you.
(06:58):
You're right.
And I have something that Ioffer and then something that I
can give.
So no, we don't have to likeeach other, not in the
beginning, but in order for usto have a long term,
relationship that grows andpushes and is innovative and is
creative and is productive andthat is profitable over time,
that light comes into play.
You know, it's often thedifference we talked about
(07:19):
between mentoring and coaching.
I don't have to like my coach,but my coach can help me get
better.
my coach can help me get a lotbetter.
Right.
But they may not.
I may not like them.
Right.
But they're teaching me certainkinds of techniques.
Now, a mentor is a differentkind of a relationship that the
like and love part of thementoring relationship is
(07:41):
stronger.
But for the coach or for theleader, no, the like part is not
a requirement.
The respect part is absolutely arequirement.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-20 (07:51):
related to that, the other way I want to
kind of dig into that wordconnection a little bit is in
the polarized world that we livein, that we have lived in, you
know, for a while now wherethere are.
People on the right and peopleon the left, people who believe
what we believe and then all themaniacs who believe something
(08:12):
different than what we believe.
you said something when I waspoking around your website, I'm
going to quote you poking aroundyour website and preparing for
this, and I loved something thatyou said that I want to quote
you.
And I want you to just playwith, you know, talk about a
little bit.
You said, I don't have tobelieve in what you believe.
(08:33):
I just have to believe in you.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23- (08:35):
That's
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025 (08:35):
Which I thought was so profound.
Talk about that a little bit.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23- (08:38):
That's right.
again, we are in a, businessmarketplace, a relational
marketplace, a politicalmarketplace, an athletic
marketplace where dissensiondiscord and a version of chaos.
is the norm.
And perhaps there is greatenergy and great opportunity
that can come from that kind of,dynamic between folks.
(09:01):
But I think that what also canhappen with that in order for it
to be supremely successful, Ihave to stay with this idea that
it is not critical that I agreewith the person in front of me.
It's not, but it is criticalthat I believe in you.
In fact, I may have hired youspecifically because you and I
see things differently.
(09:22):
And so, but I have to believethat you are a successful
person, a good person, agrounded person, a transparent
person, a productive person, youknow, these are the critical
things that I have to believe.
And then we have to figure out,we have to do the unbelievably
hard work of figuring out how towork together, particularly when
(09:42):
we disagree.
Right.
It's one of the things I speakto people about when I bring
them onto our team.
Right.
I'll ask them the questionduring the interview.
What's gonna be our firstargument and how's that gonna
go?
predict it forward.
You've been talking to me nowfor an hour or so.
I've been talking to you.
You've done your research on thewebsite.
I've done my research.
What are we gonna fuss about?
(10:03):
Right.
and I, my expectation is thatyou play chess five moves out.
you tell me, well, James, youknow, look, you come at things
this way and you have certainkinds of expectations and
demands and requirements.
And I don't operate that way.
One, one time was a person, shesays, look, I am a, an out loud
processor.
And I like to do that over timeand you seem to be the person
(10:24):
who wants the results now andthere's going to be times when I
say, hold on, I need a minute tothink about that.
And that's going to be a pointof conflict for you and I, and
she was 100 percent right, Iwhen I'm trying to move I'm
trying to move.
Right?
And I was on more than oneoccasion.
hey, hold on a second.
How about we take five minutesand then we'll come back to
(10:46):
this.
it's annoying to me.
It will, again, it's likepetting a dog the wrong way.
doesn't mean that I, she's notwrong and I'm not right.
But it was the way that weneeded to learn how to operate
with one another.
Because I believed in her.
I believe that she's smarterthan me in certain very
important ways.
She sees the world in ways thatI don't even know exist.
(11:09):
And I require that she bringthat to the table.
if I'm requiring that she bringthat to the table, am I going to
complain about how she'sbringing it?
I might want to be a little bitmore flexible in order for us to
win together.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (11:22):
What happens at, and this question
may get us into some of thewobbles, which I want to get
into, but what if you, you'rethe leader of a team and you've
got somebody on the team, you'velost belief in, you don't
believe that they are, thatthey've got the right, Goals in
mind.
You don't believe they'realigned.
You maybe you're losing beliefthat they could actually get the
(11:44):
job done.
is there a way to get thatbelief back or is it kind of,
Hey, once you've lost thatbelief, maybe you're better off
parting ways.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2025_ (11:53):
I think the answer is yes, but I
think it's incumbent upon theleader or the person who has the
best level of maturity in thesituation.
To say we've got a, we've got afracture here, fracture in
trust, fracture in respect,fracture in belief.
And we need to talk about thebest way to navigate through
(12:13):
this because it may end up thatwe're not going to be together
anymore.
We're not going to be in arelationship anymore, right?
We're going to have to go ourseparate ways.
But can we find the best way todo that?
Can we find a way to do that inrespect?
love, even though I do not likeyou, we can part ways
(12:34):
respectfully.
Even if I don't respect yourbusiness acumen anymore, or we
just, our ideologies have gottento a point where the clash is
too strong, I got to respectthat you brought to the table
your ideology.
You expressed it in a way that Icould understand.
And now I'm certain that Idisagree to a point that we
can't work together.
(12:55):
We didn't get to the point of,not working together based upon
me not believing in you.
It's because I believed in youthat now I know we don't agree.
Right?
So I think that we have to honorthe path that brought us to the
point of disconnection.
And that will allow us in thelong term be able to go back to
(13:17):
that person, open a beer, sit onthe beach, put our feet in the
sand when we're all a littleolder and a little grayer and
talk about each other'sgrandkids.
Because at some point done withthis part of our work, right?
It's not going to be aboutmaking widgets.
It's going to be about how do wemake the world a better place?
and how do we try?
(13:38):
How do we push against theocean?
You know, and sometimes you winand sometimes you don't, but you
try to do it with people thatyou respect.
So, if there comes a time whenthe fracture is so great that we
gotta go opposite directions, sobe it, but let's do that
respectfully too.
Let's do that based upon all thetransparency and vulnerability
that we share together.
(13:59):
We owe each other that.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-202 (14:00):
That's so important.
I love that because there are,you know, and I've been in
situations as a guy that coachesleaders and leadership teams,
I've been in situations wherethe fracture has been so great
that the right thing to do isend that, that part of the
relationship respectfully.
And I like what you said thatit's kind of a bigger view of
the relationship too, but atleast that part of the
(14:23):
relationship, ending itrespectfully.
And then frankly, I've been insituations where, man, for the
life of me, I thought there wasno way back for these two
people.
But they figured it out and itwas like, wow, it surprised me.
So, so to that end, let's divein.
And we've probably alreadystarted talking about it to some
degree, but you mentioned someof the obstacles, some of the
wobbles that get in the way tobuilding that deep and
(14:45):
meaningful connection.
what do you see as being thosebiggest obstacles or the wobbles
you see most often?
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (14:52):
Sure, so, I think in today's world
there's two sets that we like toplay with.
And the first set is, these sortof, Somewhat traditional
business components.
New leadership is a huge one,especially if the new leader,
your new senior leader, is theirfirst time being that leader.
A new CEO, it's a first timeCEO.
that's a challenge.
(15:13):
A second would be differentversions of growth, mergers and
acquisitions.
We're trying to grow and scale.
These can all be wedges.
people apart.
But the way that I want peopleto think about it, anything
that's a wedge can also be amagnet.
If we look at it through thelens of let's connect first,
let's connect through it.
Right.
Another might be, environmentalissues, whether it be the
(15:36):
hurricane, whether it be thefires.
Whether it be the schoolshooting, whether it be any of
these, if a political election,things that sort of happen
around us that are so big thatwe can't stop them from
happening, a political electionis not quote unquote an act of
God, but it's massive.
And it happens around you andregardless of you, much like a
(15:59):
hurricane does.
So there's those environmentalissues.
There's also technology.
Technology is absolutely, it canbe a wedge issue, or it can be
something that pulls us togetherin significant ways.
I'll add two more for context,loss.
Loss is massive.
James loses his spouse, or his,and it could be through,
(16:21):
through, she passed, or divorce,right?
When I lose something, that doessomething to me.
How are you going to lead me Inthe midst of me navigating that
I could have lost my house inthe fire in the flood, could
have lost my favorite pet, as mysister said to me one time loss
is loss, who am I to tell youhow it's going to impact you.
(16:45):
Right.
The last one I'll say isloneliness.
Loneliness is huge.
One in four Americans right now,one in four, raise their hand
and say, I am lonely.
Great Britain and Japan havepeople at the senior levels in
government whose responsibilityit is to try to address the
loneliness epidemic that is outthere.
(17:06):
We live in a world where we cancreate a bubble.
Of people or things that wethink are supporting us but
aren't real humans.
And that's we remain lonely, youknow, and there's a there's a
word, heudamonia it talks about,I feel good.
It makes me feel good.
I get that dopamine hit from thelikes on my Instagram or
(17:27):
whatever might be the food thatI'm eating the sugar spike or
whatever, right?
The short term relationship thatI had with her or him, right?
But then there's Eudaimonia.
Yeah.
Which is life is good.
My life is good, right?
Not I had a good time.
heudamonia, but life is good.
Eudaimonia, and pushing towardsthis life is good idea is how we
(17:50):
can work our way to thatloneliness perspective.
So there are those pieces thatcause it cause fractures in our
rearview mirror.
we had a whole series of sort ofquote unquote diversity related
aspects that also were wedgeissues.
Race.
Gender, sexuality, age,socioeconomics.
You've got money, you live inthat neighborhood, I don't.
(18:14):
geography.
You're from the west coast, I'mfrom the east coast.
You're from China, I'm from theUK.
You're from Australia, I'm fromthe United States.
These were also pieces that werewedge issues between us.
All of these things that I'vementioned can also be components
that bring us together.
We have to be able to measureit, a roadmap to get us from
(18:34):
where we are to where we want tobe, then execute on that
roadmap.
And leaders have to have thecourage to jump off the cliff,
face first, holding hands withsomebody, knowing that there is
a way to accomplish these goalson the way down.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_11 (18:50):
So I want to get back to measuring
it and I know you've got a toolthat helps identify these things
and measure it that I reallywant to drill into with you, but
I want to hit, you know, I'vebeen writing down some of those
wobbles and wedges, you know,that you talked about and I want
to hit, I'm going to, I'm goingto bring two together that may
or may not fit together, but thelast two you mentioned of
(19:12):
loneliness and then thediversity related.
Okay.
Things and there, there are twothings come to mind that I think
are having massive impacts, butI'd love your thoughts and most
of all thoughts on how asleaders we should be thinking
about this.
But when it comes to, toloneliness, you know, we have
(19:32):
got, what's been going on forSeveral years now is the whole,
you know, remote work, hybridwork.
More and more companies arestarting to bring people back to
work with which some leaderslook at as a good thing.
And other folks are not, youknow, there, there's definitely
different views on being at workor not.
I know my 28 year old daughterwants to never go into an office
(19:53):
again.
And man, I think.
That's how I built some of mybest friends in the world and
closest relatives is being withthem and bonding.
So you've got this whole peopleworking from home all of the
time or some part of the timethat, that I think could impact
the loneliness.
And then the other thing I'llthrow in, and I apologize if I'm
throwing too much in kind ofone, one question.
(20:18):
But the other thing I throw inas it relates to diversity and I
put them together because if youfeel like you need to hide
something about yourself or youdon't fit, that's gotta cause,
you know, some portion of thefolks that are lonely, man, it's
not cause they're working athome.
It's because somehow they feeldifferent or they're treated
differently or they're nottreated differently or whatever
(20:40):
the problem is.
But, yeah.
You know, I don't know whenpeople are listening to this,
but when we are recording this,there is with the new
administration, a major kind ofwar on everything DEI and an
attack on everything DEI, which.
(21:01):
regardless of which side of thepolitical spectrum you're on, I
think has an impact on thatloneliness.
So talk about that a little bit,the loneliness and the diversity
and how as leaders, we ought tobe thinking about that.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (21:16):
Sure.
So, One, I think that the waythat you entered it is right.
These are complex issues thathave unfortunately simple
outcomes, right?
And the, this sort of what I nowcall so called DEI, right?
Because I don't know how youdefine it.
I don't know how the person islistening to this to find, I
have no idea.
So I have to pay them therespect of saying what you think
(21:39):
is right, right?
But here's what I believe to bethe truth is there's a lot of
people that did very welleconomically from the quote
unquote DEI movement whether youwere on the for it or against it
or exploring it or whatever.
Some people did very well.
Particularly some of thedetractors, there are people
(22:01):
that made their careers off offighting against so called DEI,
right?
So, let's come all the wayaround on it, right?
But what is, what continued tohappen over and over again, it
was being used as a wedge issuebetween you and me, right?
(22:22):
and it was not being measured.
And then, well, I should say themindset being we're going to use
whatever we can to cometogether.
It just so happens to be someversion of DEI or some version
of something that's in front ofus.
We're going to bring ourselvestogether.
We're going to figure out how todo that.
That is going to be the visionthat the leader has.
So it doesn't matter to me ifyou're a pro or con, bring those
(22:45):
ideas to the table because theend result is we're going to be
a tighter knit group as afunction of these conversations.
And that's, that was always, isalways, will always be my
mindset moving forward.
So let me give an example of howthat, what that looks like.
have to recognize that all theshiniest flag, in the DEI space
would probably be gender, race,LGBTQ generations in there
(23:11):
somewhere.
Those are the shiniest flagsright now.
They're not the only ones,probably the most powerful is
socioeconomics, right?
when we take the shiny ones, Andfigure out how they think about
how they've been used as wedgeissues to keep you and me from
connecting.
And instead of that being theoutcome, switch it, how do we
(23:34):
use it to come together?
Who's it?
Who are the groups that it'swedging apart?
So let me just pluck one and sayit's race.
More often than not, my whitefriends are wedged away from
this other group.
Right?
It doesn't matter what the othergroup is.
My white friends over here arebeing wedged against.
Now, if I say Latina, if it'sabout race, Latinos and African
(23:58):
Americans, sometimes they'rewedged against each other, but
also our white friends arewedged.
If we're talking about Asiansand Latinos, there may be wedged
against each other, but also ourwhite friends are being
leveraged out.
So, now let me add in gender.
Right?
If we're talking about the twoprimary and numerically genders,
we're talking about male andfemale they have been wedged
(24:19):
against each other, right?
If I start to add these up ingeneration the same way, there
was a time when it was ourmillennial friends and our baby
boomer friends wedged againsteach other.
You add these up in some of thecalculations that we've done and
you get.
White, male generally over 45,probably under 65.
(24:40):
That population that probablyidentifies heterosexual, that
group has been wedged out ofthese conversations in very
powerful ways.
Here's the big problem withthat.
Many of those men hold levers ofinfluence.
Many of those men are good mentrying to do the right thing,
(25:03):
stumbling forward, trying tothink about how can I grow my
organization?
How can I bring people together?
But they've been excluded fromthe conversation and wedged out
instead of brought in.
Final statement, I don't knowanybody who's Latino, Asian,
LGBTQ, a gender other than malethat can't raise their hand and
(25:26):
say, you know what?
Some white guy helped me out.
He mentored me along.
He coached me.
He did this.
He did that.
I know zero people that aresuccessful that are one of these
underrepresented groups.
They can't point to a white guyor two or 10 and say they helped
me.
How did these, so how did thishappen?
How did we get convinced?
(25:48):
That this massive group ofhighly influential people that
have helped out many of us, ifnot all of the successful people
I know, how did they all becomethe bad guy?
How did we get convinced ofthat?
And then what did that do to us?
Some of my best friends couldhave been one of those people,
(26:09):
but I've been pushed away fromthem.
Some of the good mentoring thatI needed, the good coaching that
I needed.
And speaking from, uh, I'mspeaking for the people that
I've worked with.
They've been distant from thementoring and coaching that they
needed because that leader wasexcluded out.
And let me put some pressure onthose men too.
(26:29):
Some of them should have leanedin stronger.
They were the leaders.
They were the people with theinfluence.
They were the people that shouldhave said, we will not have any
kind of committee or task force,etc.
That I don't understand how it'sgoing to operate and work.
I'm not going to fund ergswithout them having measurable
impacts.
You got to be able to count it.
We do it with everything else.
(26:51):
I told the C suite one time theyhad a task force, that had been
meeting for a year, to aroundDEI related, issues.
And I said, well, how many hoursdid they put in?
We do the calculations.
How many, how much are thesepeople paid?
We do the calculations.
So this committee spent thismany man and woman hours working
on this effort.
(27:12):
Did you get that much of animpact?
Did you get 10 times that muchof an impact?
Because that's what you wouldrequire of any other committee.
Their answer across the boardwas no, even those that were in
support of it.
how can you say you're going toreinitiate it you don't have a
measurable impact to theorganization that is of value?
(27:34):
So we all have to own part ofthe responsibility for being
better.
And if we're not, careful.
wedge issues will continue topush us apart, and they'll,
it'll get so specific that itgets to the point where the only
one that understands me is me,and now I'm lonely.
(27:55):
Right?
The only people that know mystruggle are people like me.
aren't the only people that canempathize.
aren't the only people that canlove you.
Those aren't the only peoplethat can elevate you.
Those aren't the only peoplethat can coach you.
Those aren't the only peoplethat can, can encourage you.
And if that's what we think,then we end up in this space
where loneliness is our onlyoption.
(28:18):
And I don't think that's goodenough.
I think we deserve better.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (28:21):
That is so powerful.
and it comes back to what yousaid right at the beginning of
our conversation and, you know,walling yourself away and say, I
gotta come up with a way to talkabout this where a fifth grader
will understand.
and in talking about deep andmeaningful connection, right?
Cause you could, what's sopowerful, I think, and what you
said is it's not.
DEI is good or DEI is bad.
(28:44):
It's who's going to argue thatdeep and meaningful connections
with the people you're workingwith and working for and your
clients, your teammates.
There's benefit there, personaland business.
There's no argument there.
So, so couching it in thatdifferent way of deep and
meaningful connection is soimportant.
(29:05):
So thank you for that.
Let's get to, you know, how doyou and your team identify.
On it in a company on a team.
How do you identify where theissues are and help leaders?
connections.
how do you go do that?
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (29:25):
Sure.
So once we have identified thatthe organization, or they've
identified that they want somehelp, And they see some
disconnection.
They see some unhealthydisruption.
Well, what we would do is comein and initially talk to the
senior team and say, what isyour intentionality around this?
What is the, what is your valueproposition for doing this work?
We know why we do it.
(29:46):
Why do you want to do it?
Right?
we've had a hiccup in innovationand creativity.
We're just not where we need tobe.
our productivity has slipped.
We see it connecting the profitsin some kind of way.
Okay, all of that's fine.
Then I try to identify, what'sthe push.
How much do you want to put zeroto 10, 10 being go all in, turn
the fire hydrant all the way onto something else.
(30:08):
Right.
And that helps to shape the nextcouple of steps, which is.
We have what we call ourConnection Quotient Assessment.
The first part of thatConnection Quotient Assessment
is a survey that we send out,takes down, I don't know, 10,
15, 18 minutes to execute,depending on how much deep
thought you give to thequestions, that asks,
respondents around these, areasof these wobble and wedge issues
(30:31):
that we just talked about amoment ago.
And ask them to sort of measure0 to 5, strongly agree, strongly
disagree, how they, how theexamples relate to them.
And then we pull from that,trends.
And we slice that information byany number of demographic issues
and demographic issues they giveus the departments within the
organization or the levelswithin the organization, or if
(30:54):
they want other demographicpieces gender might be an
example, race may be an example.
age or time at the organization,years at the organization, maybe
additional examples, and thenbased upon the intentionality
that they provided us before, wecan then begin to build out the
roadmap.
But we supplement that withindividual interviews.
that are those questions thatare formed and framed based upon
(31:18):
the data that we've received.
And then we do a series of focusgroups to fatten out the story.
So we're just not givingstraight up data.
We also have some qualitativeresearch that's aligned with
that.
And then we present to them thiscomprehensive road map that says
here's where you are.
Here's where you want to begiven the drive that you have
zero to 10.
Here's that what we suggest thatyou do.
(31:40):
may be executive coaching.
may be policy and, practice andprocedure rehab.
may be something we call our nononsense experience, which are,
long term conversations that wehave with groups of people.
Seven, eight, nine peopletalking about an issue, say that
issue is loneliness in theworkplace and working towards
solutions on that, right?
(32:01):
How do we go from an EAP that'sover there?
To a highly active set ofbehaviors, organizational
behaviors that drive us awayfrom individual loneliness or
organizational loneliness to ateam mentality, right?
So we'll have those kinds ofthings may take place.
That's an example of what mighthappen in a no nonsense
experience.
So and then we evaluate at theend and then repeat and and over
(32:25):
time because it took a littlewhile for you to get lonely.
It took a little while for youto get wedged out.
It takes a little bit of timefor you to come back together.
But we often see the immediateresult we hear is somebody is
listening to me, to the groupswho have felt disenfranchised.
Someone's listening to me.
And I'm not talking about ourtraditionally underrepresented
(32:46):
groups that say that.
I'll go back to it is our whiteguy friends and colleagues that
say somebody is listening to me.
Right.
the midst of all this, somebodyslowed the world down, you know,
the team, our leadership saidthis is important enough for us
to slow down and say, Hey, Bob.
(33:08):
Hey, Mark.
Hey, Samantha.
Hey, Julie.
you doing?
Let's talk about this lonelinessthing for a little while.
Let's talk about how bringingpeople back to work.
Is that a solve for loneliness?
if we are going to bring themback to work, how do we bring
them back to work better?
If we can't bring them back towork because they're all over
the world, how do we execute onactivities and engagement that
(33:32):
is not just, woohoo, we'rethrowing a virtual party, but
it's, hey, I care about you.
I heard something happen.
I care about you.
Nothing.
I have a very good friend, along term friend, I should say,
maybe not a very good friend,but he said something on
Facebook.
He says, you haven't checked onme on a regular basis, even if
(33:52):
it's once a month, once everysix months, once a year,
something like that, then Idon't expect to see you at my
funeral.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (34:00):
Wow.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2025_ (34:01):
I like that.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (34:02):
Now, by the way, there's something
wrong with that statement,whether he's there or not, I,
depending on what you believe, Idon't know that he's seeing
them, but I get the point.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-202 (34:09):
But I, you know, I like the
snarkiness.
I'm a snarky guy.
I appreciate it.
I don't expect to see you at myfuneral.
Cause my response was, We couldkeep the meal bill, just a lot
lower.
Like if you, Hey, you haven'ttalked to me in two or three
years, not sure that, you know,attending my funeral is the
right option.
Just dial in, just dial invirtually, you know, it's fine.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_1 (34:31):
How much of this I'm thinking about
some very particular.
Challenges going on and a coupleof clients that I work with.
So, and if you don't know this,the, these interviews I do on
the podcast are my way to getfree coaching from people who
are smarter than I am.
So I can go help my clients thatlook really smart.
but.
You know, there, I imagine thereis a good amount of this, which
(34:53):
is, you know, as a company here,the things we're going to do,
like, yeah, you know, if webring folks back to work, here's
the way we're going to do it.
You know, here's how we're goingto collaborate and connect when
we're together, you know, as ateam, here's the way we're going
to connect with each other.
There's a whole bunch of teamand company things, but I guess
the question I have in my headis how much of this comes down
(35:15):
to.
Individual attitude.
And let me give you an exampleof what I'm talking about there.
There is a situation where aleader on one of the teams that
I coach makes very, very quick,and he admits too quick,
impressions of people.
(35:38):
This person's a good.
You know, a helpful, productive,creative part of the team.
This person's lazy.
They're not really trying.
They're no good, but I need themon the team.
You know, really, you know, goodlist and bad list, right?
and of course it's more nuancedthan that, but I see there's a
lot of leaders that do that.
(35:58):
they make quick impressions.
Maybe it's a first impression.
Maybe it's not first, but it's aquick impression of someone.
And then there are.
you know and this has nothing todo with the typical, you know, D
E I kind of, populations.
It's more of, you know, Hey,there seems to be this click on
the team of the people that theleader really likes.
(36:20):
They're really part of the team.
And then I'm part of this othergroup of we're not really in,
and I don't think the leadertrusts me, you know, how much of
it comes down to, Individualmembers of a team, individual
leaders and their own attitudesand how they manage those
attitudes, how they cope withthose attitudes, how much of it
(36:41):
comes down to that versuscompany wide policies and
procedures.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2025_ (36:48):
I think one leads the other.
the company wide policies andprocedures are driven, changed,
adjusted, enforced based upon.
The behaviors, And so if ourbehaviors, we don't have a bias
decision making.
that's our mindset.
Then you have to build out thepolicies, practices and
(37:08):
procedures to execute on that,you know, any snap decision,
whether snap is one second orsnap is 10 minutes or 10 days is
replete bias.
Thanks.
And that's okay.
You know, many of us were taughtto use bias growing up.
Nobody told us to use the wordbias though.
They said, find some way ofconnecting with the person
(37:30):
you're interviewing with.
You went to the same school,you're part of the same
fraternity or sorority.
They live in Florida, yourgrandparents are from Florida.
we were taught to leverage biasin these ways.
Okay.
that's what it is.
But I'll go back to somethingthat I said, towards the
beginning.
It is up to the person orpersons see it happening, who
(37:53):
have the organizationalmaturity, the personal maturity
to call it out in a, in the bestpossible way.
and say, let's do somethingabout it.
And so is there individual,responsibility there?
Absolutely.
100%.
But I'm always the, the kind ofperson that leverages it up
towards the leader.
The leader has moreresponsibility, has more
(38:16):
expectation.
and that, and if they knowthey've got this challenge and
their responsibility is tosurround themselves with people
who pressure test their ideas.
Hey, James, you're on that snapdecision thing again.
And just to help poke me, I'mnot gonna change.
That's how I got here.
But I need to surround myselfwith people that are going to
help me.
(38:36):
I think there's also somethingthat I've been working on and
working with people on that maylend itself to being important
this conversation.
And it's this idea ofempowerment without
accountability.
We have grown and groomed agroup of professionals, within
certain areas of yourorganization, different
(38:57):
components differentdepartments, or generationally.
Or years in the organization,and we have empowered them to do
whatever they want to say,whatever they need.
Hey, your voice is important.
Your voice is going to be heard,but we don't say you can say
whatever you want, but you'reheld accountable for the word
that you use.
left out the last part, right?
(39:20):
We said to them, Hey, yourpresence here is valued.
We really need you here.
We really want you here.
But we didn't say how you showup matters.
How you show up matters.
We didn't say you can be sparklyand, you know, wear what you
want, do what you want to dowith your hair, and decorate
yourself in ways that areimportant to you.
We didn't say, and that willimpact people, and the extent to
(39:41):
which you know that it impactspeople is the extent to which
you are responsible for that,right?
We didn't say those pieces, theaccountability pieces, we
empowered without thisaccountability, and some of it
based upon fear.
What if I tell that person withthe purple hair, they need to
have a more traditional colorand I'm the boss.
(40:04):
Am I going to get in trouble?
I don't want to get in trouble.
Now we're making decisions basedupon fear and most decisions
that come out of fear are wrongheaded decisions.
So you have to find Madam CEO,Mr.
CEO, Mr.
Director, Madam Director, a wayto tell James with his purple
hair that you can wear thatpurple hair, James, but let me
(40:26):
just be clear.
Our clients aren't the kind ofpeople that react well to purple
hair.
So you're going to have to be sogood.
You got to outpace that, right?
So let me help you work on somestrategies to help make that
happen.
Maybe you could out your purplehair long before you get there.
Maybe we can figure out how toensure that we can use your
(40:48):
purple hair, not as a wedge, butas a tool to bring people
together.
Right?
So I think that empowermentwithout accountability.
is part of the challenge thatcontinues to pervade many
organizations, and it goes toyour point on the, is it
individual responsibility?
(41:09):
Individual behavior?
Yeah, and that those individualbehaviors and responsibilities,
there's more of it.
When you get to the top, atleast it should be, it be held
to a higher standard, to thehigh standard, to the standard
of the CEO, and when the CEOcan't do it, let's hope that
they have the capacity, thedecision making, the, be
(41:30):
circumspect enough to surroundthemselves with people who will
poke them in the eye with astick, love, them be successful.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_1 (41:38):
And I think where this all comes
nice and full circle for me andthinking about this is, you
know, we have over.
The last decade or more becomeso fearful, I think, as leaders,
as a society, but let's talkabout leaders.
We become fearful about callingout somebody's purple hair.
(42:02):
You know, or, you know, or theirbody odor or the way that, you
know, we've become fearful ofpointing out that we're going to
get in trouble because, youknow, that's not DEI, right?
I've got everybody has a rightto kind of let their freak flag
fly and do what they want.
We've become so fearful aboutpointing it out.
And I think where this all comesfull circle, where you can point
(42:23):
it out and stay respectful.
Is if you have built deep,meaningful connections with your
people, you could have thosediscussions
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23- (42:33):
right.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-202 (42:34):
having a fear.
Oh my God, I walking oneggshells.
I'm going to say the wrong thingand then they're going to go to
HR and I'm going to get sued.
If you've got that deep,meaningful connection, man, you
can have that discussion andtalk about it openly and
honestly.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23 (42:48):
exactly right, you know, and I go, if I
go over here across the street,to the non DEI wobbles and
wedges.
And think about how you wouldhandle that.
would you handle it if Maria, inour strategy department, lost
her child, lost her 15 year oldson in a car accident?
How would you handle that?
(43:09):
She's different now.
She's a different person.
She's the one person on yourteam who's lost a child.
She's underrepresented.
Right.
She shows up every day as theone person, the only person in
the meeting that's going throughthat.
And it weighs on her in waysthat we can't possibly imagine.
She has to drive by a schoolevery day on the way to work.
(43:31):
We all did before.
We work across the street from aschool.
There's kids playing in thebackground.
How does that impact herdifferently than it would impact
you?
What if we started to thinkabout it that way?
Then take the muscles.
That grow from exercising thatway of thinking and apply them
in other spaces, taketechnology.
(43:53):
Some of us are scared to deathof the AI thing, right?
We were barely learning how touse Excel in a decent way.
Google Docs is, Hey, I'vemastered Google Docs.
Hey, I can put together aPowerPoint in my sleep.
Not as good as some of theseother folks, but I'm with it
now.
Ai.
Wait a second.
Right?
How is that driving us apart?
(44:15):
Hey, Marcus, why don't you goahead and use chat GPT and
develop some content for ourmarketing strategy?
have you thought about usingthat?
well, of course I have.
He says he can barely spell chatGPT, let alone go and try to
figure out how to use it.
So if we can take any of theseother examples and apply them
(44:37):
our teams.
There are things that we wouldthink about doing maybe there
are things that we would try tostrategize or we might get to
the place of I don't know whatto do really quick then know we
need to go out and get somehelp.
Because Marie is not the onlyperson that lost something,
someone, she just the only onethat told you.
Right.
We didn't, we don't know thatMichael over here, his divorce
(45:00):
hit him hard he's gutted.
he's drinking more now than heis ever drank in his life.
And he's just a really good athiding his budding alcoholism.
How do we show him love?
How do we show them respect?
How do we manage ourexpectations properly?
How do we try to understand?
Even if we, how can wecognitively empathize?
(45:22):
I understand what's going onwith Mark.
If we can't emotionallyempathize, I feel exactly what
Mark is feeling.
So I think that the, in today's,marketplace of wedges and
wobbles.
We might be better off focusingon the things that are happening
in our lives with our teams thatseem to be disconnected from
(45:45):
quote unquote or so called DEIbecause they apply to us all.
Groceries are more expensive.
It applies to us all.
Hurricane hits and half myneighborhood was wiped off the
planet applies to us all, right?
Loneliness can apply to us all.
So I think that the best way todeal with difference.
(46:08):
Is to focus on the area ofdifference.
applies to you or your teamdirectly and then use those
muscles that you build, thatunderstanding to apply to the
areas that are less comfortablefor you or for me.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_1 (46:22):
for a leader or a team that, that
really buys into the importanceof this and man, I think
everybody should, how, if theywant to work with you, where do
they go?
How do they get started?
does it start with theconnection quotient?
And do we want to give people alink to get there or let's tell
people where to go and how to doit.
(46:43):
If they want to, if they want tofind out more or entertain
working with you.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (46:47):
Sure.
So, firstly, the easy part isjamespogue.com right?
that's our website.
If you just want to get a senseof what we do and how we
operate, or if you want to reachout, you can do that through the
website.
No problems.
If you want to check out theconnection quotient, a version
of it, sort of our, our miniversion of it.
You can go to getmycq.comgetmyCQ.com I'm spelling it out
(47:08):
like people can see thatgetmyCQ.com.
You can check that out.
I'm on all the appropriatesocial media sites, the
LinkedIn, the Instagram, theFacebooks of the world, reach
out at any one of those and letus know if you have interest or
if you have a question, you wantto follow up on something that
we talked about here.
and I'll say that one of thethings that we're doing,
particularly in Asia, and maybeit'll make its way back to the
(47:29):
States, is a version ofrelationship coaching, which is
to say relationship betweenleaders and teams are real
relationships, right?
And they are deep and they arecomplex and they are often very
long term.
same thing can be said ofrelationships.
And what's been interesting iswe're working with
professionals.
Hong Kong, who are trying tobuild out their businesses, one
(47:54):
of the things they've learned isthat this loneliness piece a
function of how hard they'vebeen working in the office.
It's a function of thingsthey've been trained to be over
time, and they don't have thecapacity to bring people in or
to make available that they'reavailable to be loved and want
somebody to walk the next partof life with.
You know, it's, as I said, whenthis part of our lives is over
(48:15):
and we're on our last 10, 15%.
And we have, we have theopportunity to sit on the beach,
you know, or to watch the movieor to go for a walk.
We want somebody there with us.
You know, I just came back fromvisiting two days ago, a friend
of mine that, he had a stroke.
Wasn't a major stroke, but it'sa stroke.
And he's my guy.
(48:37):
I love him.
Where else am I supposed to be,right?
He and I are deeply andmeaningfully connected.
And after the doctor left, andafter the nurse left.
And after his significant otherwas there and after his cousin
left, I said, Hey, the hell iswrong with you?
(48:59):
You need to get your lifetogether.
We're supposed to grow oldtogether.
You and me are supposed to growold together.
And it's not okay that you'renot taking care of yourself.
You owe me and I owe you.
We're supposed to talk about ourgreat grandchildren together.
And you're cheating me out ofthis experience.
(49:20):
I need you you need me.
Right.
And so we owe each other that weowe each other our best, even
when we're at our worst, andheck you'll I owe you my worst
when I met my worst.
Because you're my person, myfriend, and if that's, if all
(49:40):
I've got to give you is myworst, then by golly, you're
going to get it, and I expectyou to help me.
And so how do we say I love you,I respect you, I need you, I
require of you, in a way thatbrings us together, instead of
ways that push us apart.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (49:58):
Wow.
Beautiful.
There's no questions I could askyou after that.
Like, that's a beautiful way.
That's a beautiful way to endit.
So I'm going to, I'm going tolet us end it there.
But man, I always say, if youwant a great company, you need a
great leadership team.
Dr.
James Pogue, man.
Thanks so much for helping usget there today.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-20 (50:19):
Glad to be here.
Thank you so much for theinvite, this was fun.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025 (50:22):
Thank you.
what comes to my mind is this idea of
being deeply and meaningfullyconnected.
our ability to be authentic, ourability to be transparent, our
ability to drive our ideas andour vision, or if we happen to
be one of the team members tohear the vision of the leader to
allow ourselves to be open tothat is based upon this
foundation of connection.
(00:23):
And there are things that get inthe way.
Of this foundation of connectionand those wobbles as I call them
can preclude me from being ableto hear what it is you're trying
to get me to understand thevision you're trying to get me
to see the direction we'retrying to go and all the why's
behind it.
Mike Goldman (00:48):
You made it to the better leadership team show, the
place where you learn how tosurround yourself with the right
people, doing the right things.
So you can grow your businesswithout losing your mind.
I'm your host and leadershipteam coach, Mike Goldman.
I'm going to show you how toimprove top and bottom line
growth, fulfillment, and thevalue your company adds to the
(01:08):
world by building a betterleadership team.
All right, let's go.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_1 (01:21):
Dr.
James Pogue is the CEO of JPEnterprises, a professional
services firm with a globalclientele focused on
strengthening the connectionsbetween leaders and teams, which
lead to increased innovation,creativity, production, and
profits.
JP Enterprises works closelywith leaders who are driving
(01:42):
transformational change, helpingthem align people, plans, and
processes with vision andvision.
Dr.
James Pogue, welcome to theshow.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (01:52):
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate the invite.
Appreciate being here with you.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025 (01:55):
Yeah, really excited, about this.
we were introduced to eachother, through, through someone,
who, Dwayne Farley, who I trust,very much kind of got me started
in, working with a group calledVistage, which has been
incredible for me.
So any friend of Dwayne's is anautomatic friend of mine.
So I warned James before this,there's only one right answer to
(02:17):
this next question, so I hope hegets it right.
if not, we're going to have toend the show early, but, James,
from all of your experience,what do you believe is the
number one most importantcharacteristic of a great
leadership team?
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (02:31):
Well, you know, I'm glad you gave me a
little bit of a heads up becauseI was going to go one direction
was really focused on theleader, but to your point, the
team is a different piece.
And I like the, I'm going toland on this idea of trust.
trust built upon meaningfulconnections between the leaders
and that they are that allowsthem to be able to push and pull
and require and expect greatthings out of one another and to
(02:54):
know that I'm pulling and I'mpushing you and I'm poking you
and I'm driving you not becauseI'm a knucklehead not because I
don't care, but because ourobligation is to provide great
service, either to our clientsto our members to whomever, and
that we trust one another thatthe idea of trust of doing that
is more important than me makingyou feel uncomfortable, than me
(03:17):
scratching you, than me, sortof, you know, you pet a dog the
wrong way, and it's like, oh mygoodness, that, that didn't feel
like, that didn't feel great.
But it's, I'm doing it for thepurposes of us being great, and
us being able to push and pullone another, and being able to
trust one another, slash expectof one another,tThat in order
for us to be great, you willmake me feel uncomfortable and
(03:37):
that's going to be okay.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025 (03:39):
Thank God you gave one of the right
lie.
There's not one right answer,but you gave one of them.
So you get to stay on the showand that's great.
so of course, I mean, and thatis what we're going to drive
into today.
Every, everything I want to talkabout with you, because you are
the expert in building thoseconnections between leaders and
their teams.
So let's take your answer anddrive deeper to talk to me, all
(04:02):
the things you said, you know,why is it.
So important that there is thatstrong connection between
leaders and the teams versus,Hey, if I got good, smart people
that are going to do what I tellthem to do, that's all I need.
Why is that connection soimportant?
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (04:19):
Well, the challenge here becomes this
idea that what, why are we here,right?
Why are we here?
are we just here to producewidgets and produce them faster
and better and stronger?
Like, why are we here?
And the leader, the primaryleader, the CEO, the chairman of
the board, has developed avision.
that they're trying to push andpull the team to execute on.
(04:42):
And In order for that vision tobe transferred for them to
understand it, we have to beable to one be transparent and
be authentic and all of thesewonderful terms and words.
But as I've been struggling toas I continue to struggle to
smarter and better at this work,I tried to use the simplest
words possible.
Like if I can explain it to afifth grader, then by golly, the
(05:04):
CEO of any organization ought tobe able to understand it.
And so when I locked myself in aroom with me and a marker and a
whiteboard, what came to my mindover and over again, what comes
to my mind is this idea of beingdeeply and meaningfully
connected.
our ability to be authentic, ourability to be transparent, our
ability to drive our ideas andour vision, or if we happen to
(05:25):
be one of the team members tohear the vision of the leader to
allow ourselves to be open tothat is based upon this
foundation of connection.
And there are things that get inthe way.
Of this foundation of connectionand those wobbles as I call them
can preclude me from being ableto hear what it is you're trying
to get me to understand thevision you're trying to get me
(05:47):
to see the direction we'retrying to go and all the why's
behind it.
So we can identify thosewobbles.
Turn the temperature down onthem or use them to pull us
together.
Then we have a much strongeropportunity to be successful.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_11 (06:03):
So I want to dig into those
wobbles, but before we do justto dig a little deeper on that
word connection, if I'm a leaderof a team, I've got my team
around me, does connection mean,you know, we all have to like
each other, we all have to befriends with each other, or
could you be connected tosomeone?
(06:24):
Feel, feel that what you callthe, you know, deep, meaningful
connection.
Could you feel that for someoneyou don't like very much?
Like where does like, andfriendship, interact with
connection
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (06:36):
Yeah, I think that it comes down to
these two words that I go backand forth with a lot.
respect and love or respect andlove slash like, and then which
one would, which one works,which one should we be
leveraging?
And, the answer is both, youknow, in the initial business
context, you know, I'm hired byyou.
I don't know you to really likeyou.
I just know that I respect youand I want to work for you.
(06:58):
You're right.
And I have something that Ioffer and then something that I
can give.
So no, we don't have to likeeach other, not in the
beginning, but in order for usto have a long term,
relationship that grows andpushes and is innovative and is
creative and is productive andthat is profitable over time,
that light comes into play.
You know, it's often thedifference we talked about
(07:19):
between mentoring and coaching.
I don't have to like my coach,but my coach can help me get
better.
my coach can help me get a lotbetter.
Right.
But they may not.
I may not like them.
Right.
But they're teaching me certainkinds of techniques.
Now, a mentor is a differentkind of a relationship that the
like and love part of thementoring relationship is
(07:41):
stronger.
But for the coach or for theleader, no, the like part is not
a requirement.
The respect part is absolutely arequirement.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-20 (07:51):
related to that, the other way I want to
kind of dig into that wordconnection a little bit is in
the polarized world that we livein, that we have lived in, you
know, for a while now wherethere are.
People on the right and peopleon the left, people who believe
what we believe and then all themaniacs who believe something
(08:12):
different than what we believe.
you said something when I waspoking around your website, I'm
going to quote you poking aroundyour website and preparing for
this, and I loved something thatyou said that I want to quote
you.
And I want you to just playwith, you know, talk about a
little bit.
You said, I don't have tobelieve in what you believe.
(08:33):
I just have to believe in you.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23- (08:35):
That's
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025 (08:35):
Which I thought was so profound.
Talk about that a little bit.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23- (08:38):
That's right.
again, we are in a, businessmarketplace, a relational
marketplace, a politicalmarketplace, an athletic
marketplace where dissensiondiscord and a version of chaos.
is the norm.
And perhaps there is greatenergy and great opportunity
that can come from that kind of,dynamic between folks.
(09:01):
But I think that what also canhappen with that in order for it
to be supremely successful, Ihave to stay with this idea that
it is not critical that I agreewith the person in front of me.
It's not, but it is criticalthat I believe in you.
In fact, I may have hired youspecifically because you and I
see things differently.
(09:22):
And so, but I have to believethat you are a successful
person, a good person, agrounded person, a transparent
person, a productive person, youknow, these are the critical
things that I have to believe.
And then we have to figure out,we have to do the unbelievably
hard work of figuring out how towork together, particularly when
(09:42):
we disagree.
Right.
It's one of the things I speakto people about when I bring
them onto our team.
Right.
I'll ask them the questionduring the interview.
What's gonna be our firstargument and how's that gonna
go?
predict it forward.
You've been talking to me nowfor an hour or so.
I've been talking to you.
You've done your research on thewebsite.
I've done my research.
What are we gonna fuss about?
(10:03):
Right.
and I, my expectation is thatyou play chess five moves out.
you tell me, well, James, youknow, look, you come at things
this way and you have certainkinds of expectations and
demands and requirements.
And I don't operate that way.
One, one time was a person, shesays, look, I am a, an out loud
processor.
And I like to do that over timeand you seem to be the person
(10:24):
who wants the results now andthere's going to be times when I
say, hold on, I need a minute tothink about that.
And that's going to be a pointof conflict for you and I, and
she was 100 percent right, Iwhen I'm trying to move I'm
trying to move.
Right?
And I was on more than oneoccasion.
hey, hold on a second.
How about we take five minutesand then we'll come back to
(10:46):
this.
it's annoying to me.
It will, again, it's likepetting a dog the wrong way.
doesn't mean that I, she's notwrong and I'm not right.
But it was the way that weneeded to learn how to operate
with one another.
Because I believed in her.
I believe that she's smarterthan me in certain very
important ways.
She sees the world in ways thatI don't even know exist.
(11:09):
And I require that she bringthat to the table.
if I'm requiring that she bringthat to the table, am I going to
complain about how she'sbringing it?
I might want to be a little bitmore flexible in order for us to
win together.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (11:22):
What happens at, and this question
may get us into some of thewobbles, which I want to get
into, but what if you, you'rethe leader of a team and you've
got somebody on the team, you'velost belief in, you don't
believe that they are, thatthey've got the right, Goals in
mind.
You don't believe they'realigned.
You maybe you're losing beliefthat they could actually get the
(11:44):
job done.
is there a way to get thatbelief back or is it kind of,
Hey, once you've lost thatbelief, maybe you're better off
parting ways.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2025_ (11:53):
I think the answer is yes, but I
think it's incumbent upon theleader or the person who has the
best level of maturity in thesituation.
To say we've got a, we've got afracture here, fracture in
trust, fracture in respect,fracture in belief.
And we need to talk about thebest way to navigate through
(12:13):
this because it may end up thatwe're not going to be together
anymore.
We're not going to be in arelationship anymore, right?
We're going to have to go ourseparate ways.
But can we find the best way todo that?
Can we find a way to do that inrespect?
love, even though I do not likeyou, we can part ways
(12:34):
respectfully.
Even if I don't respect yourbusiness acumen anymore, or we
just, our ideologies have gottento a point where the clash is
too strong, I got to respectthat you brought to the table
your ideology.
You expressed it in a way that Icould understand.
And now I'm certain that Idisagree to a point that we
can't work together.
(12:55):
We didn't get to the point of,not working together based upon
me not believing in you.
It's because I believed in youthat now I know we don't agree.
Right?
So I think that we have to honorthe path that brought us to the
point of disconnection.
And that will allow us in thelong term be able to go back to
(13:17):
that person, open a beer, sit onthe beach, put our feet in the
sand when we're all a littleolder and a little grayer and
talk about each other'sgrandkids.
Because at some point done withthis part of our work, right?
It's not going to be aboutmaking widgets.
It's going to be about how do wemake the world a better place?
and how do we try?
(13:38):
How do we push against theocean?
You know, and sometimes you winand sometimes you don't, but you
try to do it with people thatyou respect.
So, if there comes a time whenthe fracture is so great that we
gotta go opposite directions, sobe it, but let's do that
respectfully too.
Let's do that based upon all thetransparency and vulnerability
that we share together.
(13:59):
We owe each other that.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-202 (14:00):
That's so important.
I love that because there are,you know, and I've been in
situations as a guy that coachesleaders and leadership teams,
I've been in situations wherethe fracture has been so great
that the right thing to do isend that, that part of the
relationship respectfully.
And I like what you said thatit's kind of a bigger view of
the relationship too, but atleast that part of the
(14:23):
relationship, ending itrespectfully.
And then frankly, I've been insituations where, man, for the
life of me, I thought there wasno way back for these two
people.
But they figured it out and itwas like, wow, it surprised me.
So, so to that end, let's divein.
And we've probably alreadystarted talking about it to some
degree, but you mentioned someof the obstacles, some of the
wobbles that get in the way tobuilding that deep and
(14:45):
meaningful connection.
what do you see as being thosebiggest obstacles or the wobbles
you see most often?
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (14:52):
Sure, so, I think in today's world
there's two sets that we like toplay with.
And the first set is, these sortof, Somewhat traditional
business components.
New leadership is a huge one,especially if the new leader,
your new senior leader, is theirfirst time being that leader.
A new CEO, it's a first timeCEO.
that's a challenge.
(15:13):
A second would be differentversions of growth, mergers and
acquisitions.
We're trying to grow and scale.
These can all be wedges.
people apart.
But the way that I want peopleto think about it, anything
that's a wedge can also be amagnet.
If we look at it through thelens of let's connect first,
let's connect through it.
Right.
Another might be, environmentalissues, whether it be the
(15:36):
hurricane, whether it be thefires.
Whether it be the schoolshooting, whether it be any of
these, if a political election,things that sort of happen
around us that are so big thatwe can't stop them from
happening, a political electionis not quote unquote an act of
God, but it's massive.
And it happens around you andregardless of you, much like a
(15:59):
hurricane does.
So there's those environmentalissues.
There's also technology.
Technology is absolutely, it canbe a wedge issue, or it can be
something that pulls us togetherin significant ways.
I'll add two more for context,loss.
Loss is massive.
James loses his spouse, or his,and it could be through,
(16:21):
through, she passed, or divorce,right?
When I lose something, that doessomething to me.
How are you going to lead me Inthe midst of me navigating that
I could have lost my house inthe fire in the flood, could
have lost my favorite pet, as mysister said to me one time loss
is loss, who am I to tell youhow it's going to impact you.
(16:45):
Right.
The last one I'll say isloneliness.
Loneliness is huge.
One in four Americans right now,one in four, raise their hand
and say, I am lonely.
Great Britain and Japan havepeople at the senior levels in
government whose responsibilityit is to try to address the
loneliness epidemic that is outthere.
(17:06):
We live in a world where we cancreate a bubble.
Of people or things that wethink are supporting us but
aren't real humans.
And that's we remain lonely, youknow, and there's a there's a
word, heudamonia it talks about,I feel good.
It makes me feel good.
I get that dopamine hit from thelikes on my Instagram or
(17:27):
whatever might be the food thatI'm eating the sugar spike or
whatever, right?
The short term relationship thatI had with her or him, right?
But then there's Eudaimonia.
Yeah.
Which is life is good.
My life is good, right?
Not I had a good time.
heudamonia, but life is good.
Eudaimonia, and pushing towardsthis life is good idea is how we
(17:50):
can work our way to thatloneliness perspective.
So there are those pieces thatcause it cause fractures in our
rearview mirror.
we had a whole series of sort ofquote unquote diversity related
aspects that also were wedgeissues.
Race.
Gender, sexuality, age,socioeconomics.
You've got money, you live inthat neighborhood, I don't.
(18:14):
geography.
You're from the west coast, I'mfrom the east coast.
You're from China, I'm from theUK.
You're from Australia, I'm fromthe United States.
These were also pieces that werewedge issues between us.
All of these things that I'vementioned can also be components
that bring us together.
We have to be able to measureit, a roadmap to get us from
(18:34):
where we are to where we want tobe, then execute on that
roadmap.
And leaders have to have thecourage to jump off the cliff,
face first, holding hands withsomebody, knowing that there is
a way to accomplish these goalson the way down.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_11 (18:50):
So I want to get back to measuring
it and I know you've got a toolthat helps identify these things
and measure it that I reallywant to drill into with you, but
I want to hit, you know, I'vebeen writing down some of those
wobbles and wedges, you know,that you talked about and I want
to hit, I'm going to, I'm goingto bring two together that may
or may not fit together, but thelast two you mentioned of
(19:12):
loneliness and then thediversity related.
Okay.
Things and there, there are twothings come to mind that I think
are having massive impacts, butI'd love your thoughts and most
of all thoughts on how asleaders we should be thinking
about this.
But when it comes to, toloneliness, you know, we have
(19:32):
got, what's been going on forSeveral years now is the whole,
you know, remote work, hybridwork.
More and more companies arestarting to bring people back to
work with which some leaderslook at as a good thing.
And other folks are not, youknow, there, there's definitely
different views on being at workor not.
I know my 28 year old daughterwants to never go into an office
(19:53):
again.
And man, I think.
That's how I built some of mybest friends in the world and
closest relatives is being withthem and bonding.
So you've got this whole peopleworking from home all of the
time or some part of the timethat, that I think could impact
the loneliness.
And then the other thing I'llthrow in, and I apologize if I'm
throwing too much in kind ofone, one question.
(20:18):
But the other thing I throw inas it relates to diversity and I
put them together because if youfeel like you need to hide
something about yourself or youdon't fit, that's gotta cause,
you know, some portion of thefolks that are lonely, man, it's
not cause they're working athome.
It's because somehow they feeldifferent or they're treated
differently or they're nottreated differently or whatever
(20:40):
the problem is.
But, yeah.
You know, I don't know whenpeople are listening to this,
but when we are recording this,there is with the new
administration, a major kind ofwar on everything DEI and an
attack on everything DEI, which.
(21:01):
regardless of which side of thepolitical spectrum you're on, I
think has an impact on thatloneliness.
So talk about that a little bit,the loneliness and the diversity
and how as leaders, we ought tobe thinking about that.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (21:16):
Sure.
So, One, I think that the waythat you entered it is right.
These are complex issues thathave unfortunately simple
outcomes, right?
And the, this sort of what I nowcall so called DEI, right?
Because I don't know how youdefine it.
I don't know how the person islistening to this to find, I
have no idea.
So I have to pay them therespect of saying what you think
(21:39):
is right, right?
But here's what I believe to bethe truth is there's a lot of
people that did very welleconomically from the quote
unquote DEI movement whether youwere on the for it or against it
or exploring it or whatever.
Some people did very well.
Particularly some of thedetractors, there are people
(22:01):
that made their careers off offighting against so called DEI,
right?
So, let's come all the wayaround on it, right?
But what is, what continued tohappen over and over again, it
was being used as a wedge issuebetween you and me, right?
(22:22):
and it was not being measured.
And then, well, I should say themindset being we're going to use
whatever we can to cometogether.
It just so happens to be someversion of DEI or some version
of something that's in front ofus.
We're going to bring ourselvestogether.
We're going to figure out how todo that.
That is going to be the visionthat the leader has.
So it doesn't matter to me ifyou're a pro or con, bring those
(22:45):
ideas to the table because theend result is we're going to be
a tighter knit group as afunction of these conversations.
And that's, that was always, isalways, will always be my
mindset moving forward.
So let me give an example of howthat, what that looks like.
have to recognize that all theshiniest flag, in the DEI space
would probably be gender, race,LGBTQ generations in there
(23:11):
somewhere.
Those are the shiniest flagsright now.
They're not the only ones,probably the most powerful is
socioeconomics, right?
when we take the shiny ones, Andfigure out how they think about
how they've been used as wedgeissues to keep you and me from
connecting.
And instead of that being theoutcome, switch it, how do we
(23:34):
use it to come together?
Who's it?
Who are the groups that it'swedging apart?
So let me just pluck one and sayit's race.
More often than not, my whitefriends are wedged away from
this other group.
Right?
It doesn't matter what the othergroup is.
My white friends over here arebeing wedged against.
Now, if I say Latina, if it'sabout race, Latinos and African
(23:58):
Americans, sometimes they'rewedged against each other, but
also our white friends arewedged.
If we're talking about Asiansand Latinos, there may be wedged
against each other, but also ourwhite friends are being
leveraged out.
So, now let me add in gender.
Right?
If we're talking about the twoprimary and numerically genders,
we're talking about male andfemale they have been wedged
(24:19):
against each other, right?
If I start to add these up ingeneration the same way, there
was a time when it was ourmillennial friends and our baby
boomer friends wedged againsteach other.
You add these up in some of thecalculations that we've done and
you get.
White, male generally over 45,probably under 65.
(24:40):
That population that probablyidentifies heterosexual, that
group has been wedged out ofthese conversations in very
powerful ways.
Here's the big problem withthat.
Many of those men hold levers ofinfluence.
Many of those men are good mentrying to do the right thing,
(25:03):
stumbling forward, trying tothink about how can I grow my
organization?
How can I bring people together?
But they've been excluded fromthe conversation and wedged out
instead of brought in.
Final statement, I don't knowanybody who's Latino, Asian,
LGBTQ, a gender other than malethat can't raise their hand and
(25:26):
say, you know what?
Some white guy helped me out.
He mentored me along.
He coached me.
He did this.
He did that.
I know zero people that aresuccessful that are one of these
underrepresented groups.
They can't point to a white guyor two or 10 and say they helped
me.
How did these, so how did thishappen?
How did we get convinced?
(25:48):
That this massive group ofhighly influential people that
have helped out many of us, ifnot all of the successful people
I know, how did they all becomethe bad guy?
How did we get convinced ofthat?
And then what did that do to us?
Some of my best friends couldhave been one of those people,
(26:09):
but I've been pushed away fromthem.
Some of the good mentoring thatI needed, the good coaching that
I needed.
And speaking from, uh, I'mspeaking for the people that
I've worked with.
They've been distant from thementoring and coaching that they
needed because that leader wasexcluded out.
And let me put some pressure onthose men too.
(26:29):
Some of them should have leanedin stronger.
They were the leaders.
They were the people with theinfluence.
They were the people that shouldhave said, we will not have any
kind of committee or task force,etc.
That I don't understand how it'sgoing to operate and work.
I'm not going to fund ergswithout them having measurable
impacts.
You got to be able to count it.
We do it with everything else.
(26:51):
I told the C suite one time theyhad a task force, that had been
meeting for a year, to aroundDEI related, issues.
And I said, well, how many hoursdid they put in?
We do the calculations.
How many, how much are thesepeople paid?
We do the calculations.
So this committee spent thismany man and woman hours working
on this effort.
(27:12):
Did you get that much of animpact?
Did you get 10 times that muchof an impact?
Because that's what you wouldrequire of any other committee.
Their answer across the boardwas no, even those that were in
support of it.
how can you say you're going toreinitiate it you don't have a
measurable impact to theorganization that is of value?
(27:34):
So we all have to own part ofthe responsibility for being
better.
And if we're not, careful.
wedge issues will continue topush us apart, and they'll,
it'll get so specific that itgets to the point where the only
one that understands me is me,and now I'm lonely.
(27:55):
Right?
The only people that know mystruggle are people like me.
aren't the only people that canempathize.
aren't the only people that canlove you.
Those aren't the only peoplethat can elevate you.
Those aren't the only peoplethat can coach you.
Those aren't the only peoplethat can, can encourage you.
And if that's what we think,then we end up in this space
where loneliness is our onlyoption.
(28:18):
And I don't think that's goodenough.
I think we deserve better.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (28:21):
That is so powerful.
and it comes back to what yousaid right at the beginning of
our conversation and, you know,walling yourself away and say, I
gotta come up with a way to talkabout this where a fifth grader
will understand.
and in talking about deep andmeaningful connection, right?
Cause you could, what's sopowerful, I think, and what you
said is it's not.
DEI is good or DEI is bad.
(28:44):
It's who's going to argue thatdeep and meaningful connections
with the people you're workingwith and working for and your
clients, your teammates.
There's benefit there, personaland business.
There's no argument there.
So, so couching it in thatdifferent way of deep and
meaningful connection is soimportant.
(29:05):
So thank you for that.
Let's get to, you know, how doyou and your team identify.
On it in a company on a team.
How do you identify where theissues are and help leaders?
connections.
how do you go do that?
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (29:25):
Sure.
So once we have identified thatthe organization, or they've
identified that they want somehelp, And they see some
disconnection.
They see some unhealthydisruption.
Well, what we would do is comein and initially talk to the
senior team and say, what isyour intentionality around this?
What is the, what is your valueproposition for doing this work?
We know why we do it.
(29:46):
Why do you want to do it?
Right?
we've had a hiccup in innovationand creativity.
We're just not where we need tobe.
our productivity has slipped.
We see it connecting the profitsin some kind of way.
Okay, all of that's fine.
Then I try to identify, what'sthe push.
How much do you want to put zeroto 10, 10 being go all in, turn
the fire hydrant all the way onto something else.
(30:08):
Right.
And that helps to shape the nextcouple of steps, which is.
We have what we call ourConnection Quotient Assessment.
The first part of thatConnection Quotient Assessment
is a survey that we send out,takes down, I don't know, 10,
15, 18 minutes to execute,depending on how much deep
thought you give to thequestions, that asks,
respondents around these, areasof these wobble and wedge issues
(30:31):
that we just talked about amoment ago.
And ask them to sort of measure0 to 5, strongly agree, strongly
disagree, how they, how theexamples relate to them.
And then we pull from that,trends.
And we slice that information byany number of demographic issues
and demographic issues they giveus the departments within the
organization or the levelswithin the organization, or if
(30:54):
they want other demographicpieces gender might be an
example, race may be an example.
age or time at the organization,years at the organization, maybe
additional examples, and thenbased upon the intentionality
that they provided us before, wecan then begin to build out the
roadmap.
But we supplement that withindividual interviews.
that are those questions thatare formed and framed based upon
(31:18):
the data that we've received.
And then we do a series of focusgroups to fatten out the story.
So we're just not givingstraight up data.
We also have some qualitativeresearch that's aligned with
that.
And then we present to them thiscomprehensive road map that says
here's where you are.
Here's where you want to begiven the drive that you have
zero to 10.
Here's that what we suggest thatyou do.
(31:40):
may be executive coaching.
may be policy and, practice andprocedure rehab.
may be something we call our nononsense experience, which are,
long term conversations that wehave with groups of people.
Seven, eight, nine peopletalking about an issue, say that
issue is loneliness in theworkplace and working towards
solutions on that, right?
(32:01):
How do we go from an EAP that'sover there?
To a highly active set ofbehaviors, organizational
behaviors that drive us awayfrom individual loneliness or
organizational loneliness to ateam mentality, right?
So we'll have those kinds ofthings may take place.
That's an example of what mighthappen in a no nonsense
experience.
So and then we evaluate at theend and then repeat and and over
(32:25):
time because it took a littlewhile for you to get lonely.
It took a little while for youto get wedged out.
It takes a little bit of timefor you to come back together.
But we often see the immediateresult we hear is somebody is
listening to me, to the groupswho have felt disenfranchised.
Someone's listening to me.
And I'm not talking about ourtraditionally underrepresented
(32:46):
groups that say that.
I'll go back to it is our whiteguy friends and colleagues that
say somebody is listening to me.
Right.
the midst of all this, somebodyslowed the world down, you know,
the team, our leadership saidthis is important enough for us
to slow down and say, Hey, Bob.
(33:08):
Hey, Mark.
Hey, Samantha.
Hey, Julie.
you doing?
Let's talk about this lonelinessthing for a little while.
Let's talk about how bringingpeople back to work.
Is that a solve for loneliness?
if we are going to bring themback to work, how do we bring
them back to work better?
If we can't bring them back towork because they're all over
the world, how do we execute onactivities and engagement that
(33:32):
is not just, woohoo, we'rethrowing a virtual party, but
it's, hey, I care about you.
I heard something happen.
I care about you.
Nothing.
I have a very good friend, along term friend, I should say,
maybe not a very good friend,but he said something on
Facebook.
He says, you haven't checked onme on a regular basis, even if
(33:52):
it's once a month, once everysix months, once a year,
something like that, then Idon't expect to see you at my
funeral.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (34:00):
Wow.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2025_ (34:01):
I like that.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (34:02):
Now, by the way, there's something
wrong with that statement,whether he's there or not, I,
depending on what you believe, Idon't know that he's seeing
them, but I get the point.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-202 (34:09):
But I, you know, I like the
snarkiness.
I'm a snarky guy.
I appreciate it.
I don't expect to see you at myfuneral.
Cause my response was, We couldkeep the meal bill, just a lot
lower.
Like if you, Hey, you haven'ttalked to me in two or three
years, not sure that, you know,attending my funeral is the
right option.
Just dial in, just dial invirtually, you know, it's fine.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_1 (34:31):
How much of this I'm thinking about
some very particular.
Challenges going on and a coupleof clients that I work with.
So, and if you don't know this,the, these interviews I do on
the podcast are my way to getfree coaching from people who
are smarter than I am.
So I can go help my clients thatlook really smart.
but.
You know, there, I imagine thereis a good amount of this, which
(34:53):
is, you know, as a company here,the things we're going to do,
like, yeah, you know, if webring folks back to work, here's
the way we're going to do it.
You know, here's how we're goingto collaborate and connect when
we're together, you know, as ateam, here's the way we're going
to connect with each other.
There's a whole bunch of teamand company things, but I guess
the question I have in my headis how much of this comes down
(35:15):
to.
Individual attitude.
And let me give you an exampleof what I'm talking about there.
There is a situation where aleader on one of the teams that
I coach makes very, very quick,and he admits too quick,
impressions of people.
(35:38):
This person's a good.
You know, a helpful, productive,creative part of the team.
This person's lazy.
They're not really trying.
They're no good, but I need themon the team.
You know, really, you know, goodlist and bad list, right?
and of course it's more nuancedthan that, but I see there's a
lot of leaders that do that.
(35:58):
they make quick impressions.
Maybe it's a first impression.
Maybe it's not first, but it's aquick impression of someone.
And then there are.
you know and this has nothing todo with the typical, you know, D
E I kind of, populations.
It's more of, you know, Hey,there seems to be this click on
the team of the people that theleader really likes.
(36:20):
They're really part of the team.
And then I'm part of this othergroup of we're not really in,
and I don't think the leadertrusts me, you know, how much of
it comes down to, Individualmembers of a team, individual
leaders and their own attitudesand how they manage those
attitudes, how they cope withthose attitudes, how much of it
(36:41):
comes down to that versuscompany wide policies and
procedures.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2025_ (36:48):
I think one leads the other.
the company wide policies andprocedures are driven, changed,
adjusted, enforced based upon.
The behaviors, And so if ourbehaviors, we don't have a bias
decision making.
that's our mindset.
Then you have to build out thepolicies, practices and
(37:08):
procedures to execute on that,you know, any snap decision,
whether snap is one second orsnap is 10 minutes or 10 days is
replete bias.
Thanks.
And that's okay.
You know, many of us were taughtto use bias growing up.
Nobody told us to use the wordbias though.
They said, find some way ofconnecting with the person
(37:30):
you're interviewing with.
You went to the same school,you're part of the same
fraternity or sorority.
They live in Florida, yourgrandparents are from Florida.
we were taught to leverage biasin these ways.
Okay.
that's what it is.
But I'll go back to somethingthat I said, towards the
beginning.
It is up to the person orpersons see it happening, who
(37:53):
have the organizationalmaturity, the personal maturity
to call it out in a, in the bestpossible way.
and say, let's do somethingabout it.
And so is there individual,responsibility there?
Absolutely.
100%.
But I'm always the, the kind ofperson that leverages it up
towards the leader.
The leader has moreresponsibility, has more
(38:16):
expectation.
and that, and if they knowthey've got this challenge and
their responsibility is tosurround themselves with people
who pressure test their ideas.
Hey, James, you're on that snapdecision thing again.
And just to help poke me, I'mnot gonna change.
That's how I got here.
But I need to surround myselfwith people that are going to
help me.
(38:36):
I think there's also somethingthat I've been working on and
working with people on that maylend itself to being important
this conversation.
And it's this idea ofempowerment without
accountability.
We have grown and groomed agroup of professionals, within
certain areas of yourorganization, different
(38:57):
components differentdepartments, or generationally.
Or years in the organization,and we have empowered them to do
whatever they want to say,whatever they need.
Hey, your voice is important.
Your voice is going to be heard,but we don't say you can say
whatever you want, but you'reheld accountable for the word
that you use.
left out the last part, right?
(39:20):
We said to them, Hey, yourpresence here is valued.
We really need you here.
We really want you here.
But we didn't say how you showup matters.
How you show up matters.
We didn't say you can be sparklyand, you know, wear what you
want, do what you want to dowith your hair, and decorate
yourself in ways that areimportant to you.
We didn't say, and that willimpact people, and the extent to
(39:41):
which you know that it impactspeople is the extent to which
you are responsible for that,right?
We didn't say those pieces, theaccountability pieces, we
empowered without thisaccountability, and some of it
based upon fear.
What if I tell that person withthe purple hair, they need to
have a more traditional colorand I'm the boss.
(40:04):
Am I going to get in trouble?
I don't want to get in trouble.
Now we're making decisions basedupon fear and most decisions
that come out of fear are wrongheaded decisions.
So you have to find Madam CEO,Mr.
CEO, Mr.
Director, Madam Director, a wayto tell James with his purple
hair that you can wear thatpurple hair, James, but let me
(40:26):
just be clear.
Our clients aren't the kind ofpeople that react well to purple
hair.
So you're going to have to be sogood.
You got to outpace that, right?
So let me help you work on somestrategies to help make that
happen.
Maybe you could out your purplehair long before you get there.
Maybe we can figure out how toensure that we can use your
(40:48):
purple hair, not as a wedge, butas a tool to bring people
together.
Right?
So I think that empowermentwithout accountability.
is part of the challenge thatcontinues to pervade many
organizations, and it goes toyour point on the, is it
individual responsibility?
(41:09):
Individual behavior?
Yeah, and that those individualbehaviors and responsibilities,
there's more of it.
When you get to the top, atleast it should be, it be held
to a higher standard, to thehigh standard, to the standard
of the CEO, and when the CEOcan't do it, let's hope that
they have the capacity, thedecision making, the, be
(41:30):
circumspect enough to surroundthemselves with people who will
poke them in the eye with astick, love, them be successful.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_1 (41:38):
And I think where this all comes
nice and full circle for me andthinking about this is, you
know, we have over.
The last decade or more becomeso fearful, I think, as leaders,
as a society, but let's talkabout leaders.
We become fearful about callingout somebody's purple hair.
(42:02):
You know, or, you know, or theirbody odor or the way that, you
know, we've become fearful ofpointing out that we're going to
get in trouble because, youknow, that's not DEI, right?
I've got everybody has a rightto kind of let their freak flag
fly and do what they want.
We've become so fearful aboutpointing it out.
And I think where this all comesfull circle, where you can point
(42:23):
it out and stay respectful.
Is if you have built deep,meaningful connections with your
people, you could have thosediscussions
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23- (42:33):
right.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-202 (42:34):
having a fear.
Oh my God, I walking oneggshells.
I'm going to say the wrong thingand then they're going to go to
HR and I'm going to get sued.
If you've got that deep,meaningful connection, man, you
can have that discussion andtalk about it openly and
honestly.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23 (42:48):
exactly right, you know, and I go, if I
go over here across the street,to the non DEI wobbles and
wedges.
And think about how you wouldhandle that.
would you handle it if Maria, inour strategy department, lost
her child, lost her 15 year oldson in a car accident?
How would you handle that?
(43:09):
She's different now.
She's a different person.
She's the one person on yourteam who's lost a child.
She's underrepresented.
Right.
She shows up every day as theone person, the only person in
the meeting that's going throughthat.
And it weighs on her in waysthat we can't possibly imagine.
She has to drive by a schoolevery day on the way to work.
(43:31):
We all did before.
We work across the street from aschool.
There's kids playing in thebackground.
How does that impact herdifferently than it would impact
you?
What if we started to thinkabout it that way?
Then take the muscles.
That grow from exercising thatway of thinking and apply them
in other spaces, taketechnology.
(43:53):
Some of us are scared to deathof the AI thing, right?
We were barely learning how touse Excel in a decent way.
Google Docs is, Hey, I'vemastered Google Docs.
Hey, I can put together aPowerPoint in my sleep.
Not as good as some of theseother folks, but I'm with it
now.
Ai.
Wait a second.
Right?
How is that driving us apart?
(44:15):
Hey, Marcus, why don't you goahead and use chat GPT and
develop some content for ourmarketing strategy?
have you thought about usingthat?
well, of course I have.
He says he can barely spell chatGPT, let alone go and try to
figure out how to use it.
So if we can take any of theseother examples and apply them
(44:37):
our teams.
There are things that we wouldthink about doing maybe there
are things that we would try tostrategize or we might get to
the place of I don't know whatto do really quick then know we
need to go out and get somehelp.
Because Marie is not the onlyperson that lost something,
someone, she just the only onethat told you.
Right.
We didn't, we don't know thatMichael over here, his divorce
(45:00):
hit him hard he's gutted.
he's drinking more now than heis ever drank in his life.
And he's just a really good athiding his budding alcoholism.
How do we show him love?
How do we show them respect?
How do we manage ourexpectations properly?
How do we try to understand?
Even if we, how can wecognitively empathize?
(45:22):
I understand what's going onwith Mark.
If we can't emotionallyempathize, I feel exactly what
Mark is feeling.
So I think that the, in today's,marketplace of wedges and
wobbles.
We might be better off focusingon the things that are happening
in our lives with our teams thatseem to be disconnected from
(45:45):
quote unquote or so called DEIbecause they apply to us all.
Groceries are more expensive.
It applies to us all.
Hurricane hits and half myneighborhood was wiped off the
planet applies to us all, right?
Loneliness can apply to us all.
So I think that the best way todeal with difference.
(46:08):
Is to focus on the area ofdifference.
applies to you or your teamdirectly and then use those
muscles that you build, thatunderstanding to apply to the
areas that are less comfortablefor you or for me.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_1 (46:22):
for a leader or a team that, that
really buys into the importanceof this and man, I think
everybody should, how, if theywant to work with you, where do
they go?
How do they get started?
does it start with theconnection quotient?
And do we want to give people alink to get there or let's tell
people where to go and how to doit.
(46:43):
If they want to, if they want tofind out more or entertain
working with you.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-2 (46:47):
Sure.
So, firstly, the easy part isjamespogue.com right?
that's our website.
If you just want to get a senseof what we do and how we
operate, or if you want to reachout, you can do that through the
website.
No problems.
If you want to check out theconnection quotient, a version
of it, sort of our, our miniversion of it.
You can go to getmycq.comgetmyCQ.com I'm spelling it out
(47:08):
like people can see thatgetmyCQ.com.
You can check that out.
I'm on all the appropriatesocial media sites, the
LinkedIn, the Instagram, theFacebooks of the world, reach
out at any one of those and letus know if you have interest or
if you have a question, you wantto follow up on something that
we talked about here.
and I'll say that one of thethings that we're doing,
particularly in Asia, and maybeit'll make its way back to the
(47:29):
States, is a version ofrelationship coaching, which is
to say relationship betweenleaders and teams are real
relationships, right?
And they are deep and they arecomplex and they are often very
long term.
same thing can be said ofrelationships.
And what's been interesting iswe're working with
professionals.
Hong Kong, who are trying tobuild out their businesses, one
(47:54):
of the things they've learned isthat this loneliness piece a
function of how hard they'vebeen working in the office.
It's a function of thingsthey've been trained to be over
time, and they don't have thecapacity to bring people in or
to make available that they'reavailable to be loved and want
somebody to walk the next partof life with.
You know, it's, as I said, whenthis part of our lives is over
(48:15):
and we're on our last 10, 15%.
And we have, we have theopportunity to sit on the beach,
you know, or to watch the movieor to go for a walk.
We want somebody there with us.
You know, I just came back fromvisiting two days ago, a friend
of mine that, he had a stroke.
Wasn't a major stroke, but it'sa stroke.
And he's my guy.
(48:37):
I love him.
Where else am I supposed to be,right?
He and I are deeply andmeaningfully connected.
And after the doctor left, andafter the nurse left.
And after his significant otherwas there and after his cousin
left, I said, Hey, the hell iswrong with you?
(48:59):
You need to get your lifetogether.
We're supposed to grow oldtogether.
You and me are supposed to growold together.
And it's not okay that you'renot taking care of yourself.
You owe me and I owe you.
We're supposed to talk about ourgreat grandchildren together.
And you're cheating me out ofthis experience.
(49:20):
I need you you need me.
Right.
And so we owe each other that weowe each other our best, even
when we're at our worst, andheck you'll I owe you my worst
when I met my worst.
Because you're my person, myfriend, and if that's, if all
(49:40):
I've got to give you is myworst, then by golly, you're
going to get it, and I expectyou to help me.
And so how do we say I love you,I respect you, I need you, I
require of you, in a way thatbrings us together, instead of
ways that push us apart.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025_ (49:58):
Wow.
Beautiful.
There's no questions I could askyou after that.
Like, that's a beautiful way.
That's a beautiful way to endit.
So I'm going to, I'm going tolet us end it there.
But man, I always say, if youwant a great company, you need a
great leadership team.
Dr.
James Pogue, man.
Thanks so much for helping usget there today.
james-pogue-phd_1_01-23-20 (50:19):
Glad to be here.
Thank you so much for theinvite, this was fun.
mike-goldman_1_01-23-2025 (50:22):
Thank you.
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