March 25, 2025 • 56 mins
In this episode of The Better Leadership Team Show, I sit down with Chalmers Brothers, best-selling author, executive coach, and expert in leadership development. Chalmers dives into the power of conversations in shaping leadership success, introducing concepts like "carefrontation" and the SOAR framework. We discuss how language creates possibilities, why avoiding difficult conversations harms teams, and how leaders can foster trust and authenticity. Whether you're a CEO or an aspiring leader, this episode is packed with actionable insights to elevate your team’s performance. Don't miss this transformative conversation!
Thanks for listening! Connect with us at mike-goldman.com/blog and on Instagram@mikegoldmancoach and on YouTube @Mikegoldmancoach
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Episode Transcript
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Chalmers Brothers (00:02):
If you don't like the results you're
producing, you can take a lookat how you look at things.
You can bring the observer youare into the equation and look
at your beliefs, not justthrough them.
Look at your presuppositions,not just through them.
Look at your moods and emotionsand how they're coloring your
narratives.
Look at how you carry yourselfphysically and how that's
(00:24):
impacting your moods.
We can become a more powerfulobserver of the observer that we
are.
And that model for me was a gamechanger, I don't think you can
have leadership developmentwithout personal development.
I think they are the same, But alot of the growth that we need
is inner growth.
It's becoming a more powerfulobserver of myself.
(00:44):
And It's taking responsibilityfor my internal narratives.
Mike Goldman (00:56):
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
(01:16):
world by building a betterleadership team.
All right, let's go.
Chalmers Brothers is a bestselling author, certified
executive coach and professionalspeaker, and long time provider
(01:36):
of leadership and personaldevelopment programs within
organizations around the world.
His 38 year career is focused onself awareness, the centrality
of conversations for leadershipand organizational success, and
a new and powerful way ofunderstanding language and its
role in our lives.
We're certainly gonna Dig intothat.
(01:58):
He's written two books, Languageand the Pursuit of Leadership
Excellence and Language and thePursuit of Happiness.
They've been translated intoSpanish and Japanese with Korean
and Mandarin translationscheduled for 2025.
My books are barely in English,so that's pretty impressive.
So we're going to dive deepinto, how to have powerful
(02:19):
conversations.
First, we both have a verysimilar background, Chalmers and
I, both started our career atwhat's now called Accenture, but
I think both of us are so oldthat it was Anderson Consulting.
And at least when I started, itwas actually not even Anderson
Consulting.
it was a consulting arm ofArthur Anderson and company.
Chalmers Brothers (02:37):
When I joined, it was M.
I.
C.
D.
The management informationconsulting division of Arthur
Anderson.
This you're right.
So we were both pre AndersonConsulting even.
Mike Goldman (02:47):
Yeah.
and if you're like me, I always,whenever I say, you know, the
consulting division of ArthurAnderson, I always have to say,
not the guys that got introuble.
I know.
But you know what?
Most people don't even rememberthat at this point.
So they say that and they'relike.
What are you talking about?
Chalmers Brothers (03:02):
I
Mike Goldman (03:02):
get it.
Chalmers Brothers (03:03):
You're right.
Mike Goldman (03:03):
so we, but we both have that Accenture Anderson
Consulting, Arthur Anderson,whatever you want, MICD,
whatever you want to call it inour background.
and we both, have spent a lot oftime, speaking on the, Vistage
Circuit, which is a greatorganization of CEOs and
beautiful mastermind groups.
so we both have that background.
Anyway, as I always do, I'mgoing to start with, with a
(03:26):
really important question, giventhe, the title of the show and
the audience of the show, andthat's Chalmers, from all of
your, you know, 38 or so yearsof experience, what do you
believe is the number onecharacteristic of a great
leadership team?
Chalmers Brothers (03:42):
You know, my mind immediately goes to very
few missing conversations.
Very few, if any, missingconversations.
I believe this, Mike.
Leaders get paid to haveeffective conversations.
Leaders are conversationalarchitects and conversational
engines.
Right?
So when I think about aleadership team, the ability to
(04:05):
have conversations that matter,The ability to have very few
missing conversations andthere's a term I learned.
I didn't learn this in mycoaching world.
I learned it in Vistage.
I've been fortunate enough, thisis my 28th year speaking on the
Vistage Network.
And the term, Mike, iscarefrontation.
The term is carefrontation.
(04:26):
To me, solid, powerfulleadership teams are
characterized by carefrontation.
I care enough about you.
I care enough about us toinitiate a conversation that in
this very moment, I'm not 100percent sure how it's going to
go.
But I care about, I care moreabout what we're up to.
(04:47):
I care more about our movementin the market.
I care more about your careertrajectory than I do about my
hands, not sweating.
And it's this combination,right, of care and the
willingness to be direct andconfront with what needs to be
talked about.
And when I think about it, whatfor me separates, at least one
thing that separatescarefrontation from
(05:07):
confrontation.
In care frontation, I speak intomy concerns, Mike.
I have a concern, man, that theway I want to say something may
come out wrong.
I care about you.
I care about us, but I need tohave a conversation with you.
I'm not exactly sure how to haveit.
And Mike, when I say very fewmissing conversations, and I say
care frontation, I also want tosay that these leadership teams.
(05:30):
are characterized by integrityand integrity to me.
One of my favorite definitionsis the inner is the outer.
They're integrated.
Are you with me?
So if I have an inner concern, acare that I have inside and I
speak it outside, just like itis inside, you feel it.
(05:51):
I mean, this to me, can't befaked.
Right.
It can't be faked.
And whether we use the wordsauthenticity or vulnerability or
integrity or sincerity, to me,it's the quality of
conversations that separategreat leadership teams from
others.
And Mike, I think, man, I thinkit's the quality of these
conversations that separategreat relationships from okay
(06:14):
relationships, great parentingfrom okay parenting.
Mike Goldman (06:18):
I love when you said it can't be faked because
one of the things that I see,and more importantly for me
personally, one of the things Istruggled with earlier in my
career, when I say earlier in mycareer, when I was in my 40s
versus 60, so not a kid, but Iwould read the books that said
(06:39):
things like, don't dictate, askyour team questions that talked
about how to have the difficultconversation that talked about
being open and honest, but to mefor a good time, those were
techniques.
Chalmers Brothers (06:54):
Yep.
Mike Goldman (06:55):
So it wasn't really who I was.
I was just using the techniquesversus truly, you know, I found
until I changed my attitude.
That stuff wasn't real and itdidn't come across as real.
Chalmers Brothers (07:09):
No, you know, that reminds me when I was in my
mid twenties.
Now again, I'm going way backwhen I was in my mid twenties.
I was rock solid certain that ifyou didn't see things like I
did, you were stupid.
And it's amazing how nobody evertaught me that right.
That was simply part of how Igrew up and it wasn't explicitly
taught.
(07:29):
But I was convinced that the wayI saw things was authentic.
And it took me years, Mike, toget comfortable enough in my own
skin to say, I don't know.
I mean, number one, I reallythought I was objective.
I thought the way I saw theworld was the way the world was.
And a giant piece of learning inmy ontological coaching
background is this claim that weare each unique observers.
(07:53):
By definition, it's not just asnowflake is different.
no, everything in nature isdifferent.
No two trees are the same.
No two camels are the same.
No two grains of sand are thesame.
Not really.
No two stars are the same.
Nothing in nature is the same.
So nature apparently doesn'treplicate, it creates.
And we're part of nature.
(08:14):
So the thing I did not see in mymid twenties was that everybody,
myself included, has aparticular perspective on
objective reality.
But nobody has access to the wayit is.
And that's starting point.
was my starting point to beginto acknowledge that I don't know
and being comfortable enough inmy own skin to say I don't know.
(08:39):
And really one of the worstexperiences I ever had in my
professional life.
I won't say who the client was,but it was early and it was an
educational institution.
And I was the only person in theroom pretty much that did not
have a PhD.
Now, I got challenged on somethings and I wanted to be right.
(09:00):
And it tailstunned into ahorrible, terrible event.
And as I, and that I learnedfrom, that I learned from, that
I'm in the business of sharingdistinctions, helping people see
some things, but I don't havethe one way.
And it reminds me of JimCollins's, right, Level 5
(09:20):
leaders, right, this incrediblecombination of tremendous
commitment and motivation andpurpose and humility.
And it took me from probably 25to 35 to get an appropriate dose
of humility to be comfortableenough in what I did know to not
be threatened by what I didn'tknow.
Mike Goldman (09:42):
You learned it quicker than I did.
I was at my forties, but, and Ido want, I want to get back to
this idea of ontologicalcoaching partially because as a.
Kid growing up in the Bronx, Idon't, I tend to not understand
five syllable words,delicatessen.
I get that one.
I do want to get back to that,but before I do, especially
(10:03):
because we both started out withthat similar background back in
the management consulting days,how did you go from that?
To writing and speaking andcoaching and where your focus is
today,
Chalmers Brothers (10:17):
you know, like a lot of things, it's hard
to connect the dots lookingforward, but looking back, we
kind of can.
Right?
And so I have a engineeringbackground and an MBA and right.
I went to Anderson consultingout of grad school doing fine
there.
in 1987, Mike, one year into mymarriage, I've been married 38
years.
And I know in my heart the bodyof learning that is the basis of
(10:41):
both of my books that body oflearning is a giant reason I
have a 38 year marriage and nota one year marriage.
I know that in my heart.
No doubt about it.
And so long story short, my wifeand I, some friends of ours, we
were in New Orleans.
Some friends of ours went to aworkshop in Baton Rouge and
would not be quiet.
They simply would not be quiet.
(11:02):
You guys got to go.
You guys got to go.
You guys got to go.
Mike in my head.
I was this number one.
I'm not really sure what aworkshop is.
Number two.
I'm pretty sure I don't needone.
And number three, I was soarrogant.
Number three, if I haven't heardof this already, how good can it
be?
And they finally said, look, wewill pay for you to go, both of
you.
It's not for couples, but wewent as a couple.
(11:24):
We think y'all would do greattoo.
And if you don't think it'sworth it, don't pay us back.
So that got my attention.
My wife and I went, Mike, and itwas, and again, I don't use this
term as I'm introducing a lot ofmy work, but it was my
introduction to something calledontological coaching.
Now that term is a mouthful.
An ontological coaching,literally translated.
(11:46):
That means coaching people intheir way of being.
Ontology has to do with howthings are, but the being of
things.
So one implication is there'smore than one way to be.
And I have to say, I was sittingthere as a one year, you know,
maybe my second year consultantat Anderson Consulting.
My wife was in medical school, Ithink, at the time still.
(12:07):
And I, I just, I had anepiphany.
It was like, I was so certainabout many things.
When I walked in and Mike aboutmidday Saturday, I wasn't
certain about a lot of stuff.
I was in like a free fall about,I was completely certain, for
example, that my relationshipwith my wife was a 9.5 outta 10
at that point in our marriage,right?
We were copacetic, cognitively,emotionally, same sense of
(12:31):
humor, all that stuff.
I realized it's a 9.5 if ten'sright here.
But what if 10's in the clouds?
What if I had artificiallylimited the single most
important relationship in mylife, and here's the kicker, and
had been utterly unaware I wasdoing that?
That cost me an hour in my head.
(12:51):
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
I had, it was a giant wake upcall.
and a lot of it was, it jarredme out of my terminal certainty.
I was so certain how certainthings were and after a weekend,
I was not certain, but I hadthis incredible combination of
(13:12):
emotions after that firstworkshop, I had an incredible
right side by side, regret andambition, right side by side,
regret for, you know, look athow I've been being, look at how
I've been treating my wife, lookat how I've been treating my mom
and dad, look at how I was, howarrogant.
I was in so many areas and theambition was okay.
(13:32):
I got a whole new toolkit.
I got a whole new body oflearning that aims me in this
direction.
And one of the new things, thenew tools, the new distinctions
was this notion that languagecreates and generates.
Language is not simply a passivetool for describing how things
are.
Yes, we describe with language,but that's not all that we do.
(13:54):
We open and close possibilities,right?
We create context.
We influence our moods andemotions.
We influence our physicalbodies.
It was the first time I'd everheard that.
Right?
I never heard that.
And there were three aspects toour way of being that were
introduced in that very firstworkshop and are still central
(14:15):
in my life.
Imagine three circles that areinterconnected.
One is language, internal andexternal narratives.
The other is moods and emotions.
And the other is body andbiology.
And think about it.
These are connected andcongruent in you, in me, in all
human beings.
This is why, for example, wefeel better, which is mood,
(14:36):
after we exercise, which isbody.
That's kind of why we do it.
And when you exercise and feelbetter, now we're up to
language, now do you notinterpret the same flat tire or
offhand comment a bitdifferently?
Yes.
There's a coherency, and thatcoherency wants to be coherent.
And so that means you can shifthow you walk and shift your
(14:58):
mood.
You can shift your mood throughmusic and you shift how you
walk.
You can think differently andyou'll walk differently or
breathe differently.
And so it was this introductionto wait.
I've got three avenues forintervening on the coherency
that is me.
And the notion is, in some ways,that we're not human beings,
(15:20):
we're human becomeings.
We're in an ongoing process ofbecoming a unique, a new
observer.
So that combination, that uniquecombination that's you right
now, that combination that's meright now, one question I ask in
my workshops is, okay, let'sacknowledge we are each unique
observers, right?
If we took a tour of thisbuilding, And we stayed together
(15:43):
and we came back and the tourguide said, what did you notice?
How many different answers isthe tour guide going to get?
He's going to get, or she'sgoing to get, how many people
went on the tour?
Happens all the time.
So we're unique observers.
The next question is, are you,however, the same observer now
than you were when you were 17?
(16:04):
No.
And how did that change this?
Was it one morning in 2020, wewoke up and whoosh, the world
had changed.
No.
It's every moment.
And this is why I genuinely,Mike, I think we are not human
beings.
We are human becomings and partof my work.
And I bet yours too, if youlooked at it this way, part of
(16:26):
our work, I think has to do withhelp people become more powerful
and more competent observers ofthemselves, helping them see
what they didn't see before sothey can do what they couldn't
do before.
Have what they couldn't havebefore and be what they couldn't
be before.
Mike Goldman (16:43):
let's take this and relate it to the leader.
That's a part of a team or theleader that has a team.
And one of the things I knowwhen I was researching some of
your materials, you sayleadership and management are
primarily conversationalcompetencies.
(17:05):
Let's take what you're talkingabout on this way of being and
the three different areas ofthat relate that to what does
that mean that leadership andmanagement are primarily
conversational competencies.
Chalmers Brothers (17:17):
This is wonderful.
One of the things I do.
In all of my workshops.
like, I have a longer program,but I also have a half day
program.
I have more than that on theVistage circuit, but my main
program on Vistage, right?
It's called leadership,conversations and results.
so one of the activities I doright out of the gate.
With my Vistage clients and mycorporate clients, and they're
(17:39):
all in a room.
I have on a piece of paper, Isay, look, okay, as a leader.
What do you get paid to do?
What do you get paid to do And Isaid, look, everybody here does
10,000 things of the 10,000things you currently do right
now as your job, as a leader, atwhatever level you are, what
would you say right now are themost important one or two or
(17:59):
three things right now that yousay you get paid to do as a
leader?
And Mike, you've been around along time as I have, we know the
answers are going to be thingslike.
To set the example, to lead byexample, to steward a powerful
culture, to drive continuousprocess improvement, to foster
an environment of innovation, tocoach, to mentor, to guide, to
(18:20):
facilitate, and all these arespot on.
My next question is always,okay, let's pretend I have
infiltrated your office and I'msneaking around watching you do
all the things you just said youget paid to do.
I'm watching you steward apowerful culture.
I'm watching you coach andmentor and guide.
(18:41):
I'm watching you foster anenvironment of powerful
innovation.
I'm watching you be the face ofthe organization.
The question is, what would acamera see as it sees you doing
that?
I'm watching you with my eyes doall those things.
What do I actually see youdoing?
And with a little reflection,then, well, I would see you
(19:03):
engaging with humans.
And I write the word in bigletters on the flip chart,
conversations.
You get paid to have effectiveconversations.
You get paid to haveconversations, the outcome of
which is something and notsomething else.
And this is so close, we don'tsee it.
This is so obvious, we can missit.
Leaders are conversationalarchitects and conversational
(19:26):
engines.
Because the question is, can yoube a strong leader?
Strong.
Without the ability to lift ahundred pounds over your head.
Yes.
It's a metaphor, right?
You could be a powerful leaderfrom a wheelchair and we have
historical examples all over theplace.
So it's this notion that when weactually look at what leadership
(19:47):
is Leaders don't get paid tohang sheetrock to lay bricks to
fly helicopters to installlandscaping to take people
fishing.
No, leaders get paid to mentor,coach, guide, lead, manage,
facilitate, all of which happensin language, all of which
(20:08):
happens in language.
Mike Goldman (20:09):
so when we think about these conversations.
What are some of the mistakesyou see in how leaders engage in
these conversations or preparefor these conversations?
Chalmers Brothers (20:24):
There's a couple of things that at a
larger level in terms ofmistakes or preparation, I like
to frame it with this claim orwith this tee up a pretend
you're a consultant and you'rebrought in to diagnose
performance inside a company.
And you do you spend a monththere learning and interviewing
and all this stuff and you comeand you have a final report for
(20:48):
senior leaders and what you tellthem is, you know what?
I have discovered that there aretons of missing conversations in
your company, tons ofconversations that people in
their heart know they should behaving, but they're not having
them make a prediction onresults.
What would you predict?
For the quantitative andqualitative results that company
(21:10):
is producing, if you find tonsof conversations that should be
happening but are not.
Almost always the results arebad.
The results are bad in terms ofquality, in terms of innovation,
in terms of mid coursecorrections, all of that.
what prevents us from havingthese sorts of conversations?
One of the mistakes, I think,Mike, and maybe it's not a
(21:32):
mistake, it's just an area thatthey haven't, that they haven't
been exposed to, maybe, orhaven't learned very much, is
the ability to have difficultconversations, well, meaning,
most of these conversations thatyou would categorize, I would
categorize as missing, well,they're conversations that
people are avoiding becausethey're holding them as
difficult or challenging.
Anybody can have an easyconversation.
(21:54):
That separates nobody fromnothing.
That differentiates nothing.
These are the conversations thatare meaningful.
And one of the best things Iever learned about one of the
things that language createscontext.
Language creates context.
Not content.
Context.
For difficult conversations.
(22:14):
The ability to have a difficultconversation well, I believe,
has much more to do With you andI creating a powerful and
supportive context than it doeson us delivering impeccable
content.
And let me share an example thatI mean, that was real for me at
Anderson Consulting in NewOrleans.
(22:34):
I was there one year, a friendof mine was my age, but he was
four years ahead of me and wewere good friends.
We played on the same softballteam.
We drank beer together.
Our wives were good friends,right?
We were very social.
I'm one year in.
He's a five year guy.
I just spent my first year onhis project.
So my good friend was a projectmanager one day.
(22:55):
And now my public identity,Mike, how well I was doing.
I thought it was doing prettywell in the company.
He comes up and said, Chalmersbuddy, I need to have a
conversation with you.
I'm not really sure how to haveit.
I have a concern that you mayoverreact.
To some feedback I'm going togive you and you may think our
friendships in jeopardy Let mesay this our friendship will
(23:16):
never be in jeopardy, but thereare some blind spots in your
work My friend he also said lookyou're telling me at softball
that you want a long career inthe New Orleans office My
concern is if nothing changes onyour part pretty quick.
It's not going to happen for youman, I don't know the best way
to have this conversation.
What I know, we have to havethis conversation and Mike, what
(23:38):
he did, he spoke into hisconcerns.
I have a concern that aconversation I know we need to
have may go sideways.
I have a concern that what youwant in your career may not
happen for you.
I have a concern that you havesome blind spots.
Meaning areas that you're, youknow, there's a great
expression, intention is notequal impact.
(24:01):
Intention is not equal impact.
And he said, buddy, there's somethings, there's some impacts
you're making that you're notintending to make.
And I don't think, I don't seeyou working on them.
So I'm kind of concluding thatyou don't see them, but we have
to have this conversation.
And Mike, all of that, he hadn'teven gotten to the content of
that conversation.
That's context.
(24:23):
And that was the first time inmy life.
That was the first time in mylife.
I was ever on the receiving endof that kind of context,
creating.
That's that genuinely shaped myreceptivity to the message of
content when it finally came.
Mike Goldman (24:38):
I'm so glad that's the example you brought up
because as we're talking.
What's coming into my head thatI want to dive a little deeper
on, and we have now just startedis not only how do you have the
difficult conversations, butvery specifically the difficult
conversations that I see peoplenot have.
(24:59):
And I also like the mistake.
It's not the mistake was not somuch having the conversation in
the wrong way.
The bigger mistake is not havingthe conversation.
I think so.
Where and where I see that.
That is one of the things I dowith my clients every quarter is
I sit with the leadership teamand we assess the performance of
(25:19):
their direct reports and indoing that, we, of course, come
up with every quarter one or twoor five people that are
underperforming.
Very often when I ask, okay,what are we going to do?
Can we coach this person up oris this someone we need to think
(25:40):
about coaching out?
Chalmers Brothers (25:41):
Right.
Mike Goldman (25:43):
When I hear, I think we can coach up, which is
a wonderful answer.
Everybody deserves coaching.
One of the painful things that Ihear that I think is leadership
malpractice is very often theseproblems have been going on for
six months, nine months, twoyears.
And when I say, okay, wow, it'sgoing on two years and yet you
(26:04):
still think you can coach them,help me understand what's going
on there.
They say, well, I haven't reallytalked to them about it yet.
what is it that holds thosefolks back?
Chalmers Brothers (26:15):
You know, there's a couple of things come
up.
Number one, I've been in theVistage community, right?
these are CEOs.
that are executives, businessowners.
And I tell my wife, there's avery low jerk quotient in
Vistage, very few jerks.
They self select out, right?
The big egos do not make it.
They self select out.
(26:35):
That means we do not like firingpeople, right?
They do not like they do notlike letting people go.
One of my Vistage mentors saidsomething to me early.
He said, you know, bad newsdoesn't age well.
Bad news doesn't age well, andas soon as I was introduced to
the term carefrontation, right,in my work and began using it, I
(26:58):
had some people say, you knowwhat, you have to look at a lady
named Kim Scott.
Kim Scott has some stuff outthere and she has a term called
radical candor.
Right, which is the same thing,but Mike in her grid, right?
She has a 4 quadrant grid.
That on the vertical axis is howmuch do you care about the
person.
Right.
That you're talking to on thehorizontal axis is how willing
(27:21):
are you right to confront themdirectly and those for where
those intersect you for verydifferent conversational spaces.
The example you just talkedabout was for me on her grid, an
example of, I have a lot ofcare.
I care for the person.
I care about you as a person,and I'm not willing to confront
(27:43):
you directly.
About A, B, or C.
So it's not that we're nottalking.
It's that we're not talkingdirectly enough.
Because you're not getting themessage.
One question I ask is, Whathappens to good performers when
you leave bad performers inplace long enough?
Bad things start to happen,including them leaving.
(28:03):
Now Mike, I'm a power oflanguage guy.
Right?
My first book is Language in thePursuit of Happiness.
My second book is Language andthe Pursuit of Leadership
Excellence.
Kim Scott coined a term that forme is the most bitingly
excellent encapsulation of whatyou described I have ever
encountered.
She introduced me to the termcalled ruinous empathy.
(28:26):
Ruinous empathy.
And I mean, I have not found aclose second.
When I talk about carefrontation, I share this with my
clients, this notion ruinousempathy because we're not doing
anybody any good.
And in fact, in the Vistageworld, and again, I've been 28
years with this is groups.
I talk about this and theseconversations.
(28:49):
And Mike, I've had people and Ibet you may have to given how
long you've been doing yourwork.
I've had people say Chalmers.
I have to say this.
I had a direct report.
A man on my team.
He was not doing well over time.
I've been avoiding theseconversations with him.
I finally did have what Ithought was and what I look back
and still think was a veryhealthy carefrontation
(29:11):
conversation.
I spoke authentically.
I spoke into my concernsgenuine, right?
and I ended up firing ended upletting him go.
I saw him six months ago at acharity event and he thanked me.
You know what he said?
Mike, you're the only person,man, who cared enough about me
(29:32):
to have this conversation.
I wasn't happy.
I wasn't doing well.
I knew I wasn't doing well.
You weren't the only one.
I found it better.
I found something else.
Right?
But you know what?
Think about that.
That's powerful.
That's, we are not servinganybody, right?
And I know it's the last resortto let people go, but sometimes
it's the right choice.
Again, one of the otherexpressions I learned is
(29:54):
sometimes it's easier to changepeople than it is to change
people.
Say that
Mike Goldman (30:00):
one more time Sometimes
Chalmers Brothers (30:03):
it's easier to change people than it is to
change people.
Ah, right?
Because I have some basicclaims, Mike, that I start my
workshops with.
I start with a big eye in thesky looking at a stick person.
You taking a look at youself-awareness, right?
So ultimately, all of the stuffI do ultimately.
(30:23):
What I want to do is help youbecome a more powerful and a
more competent observer ofyourself.
Because basic claim number one,you can't change another human
being, right?
You can change yourself, but youcan't change what you don't
notice.
You can't change what you don'tsee.
Another of my basic claims is weare always at choice.
(30:44):
We human beings, we always havechoices, no matter what.
And we're constantly choosingevery moment of our lives.
And in these situations where weultimately change people, I like
to view it this way.
Because I've had someone say,look man, what happens if you
genuinely have a problem, adirect report, who's not
(31:07):
performing well, an excellentcarefrontation conversation,
fully authentic, fullyvulnerable, and the person
doesn't make the adjustmentsthat we're talking about.
What do you do?
And what initially comes to mindis, are we clear that person is
at choice about how they respondto you?
Now, they may not feel likethey're at choice.
(31:28):
They may not be self awareenough to recognize.
But they are choosing how theyrespond to your conversation.
Well, then you get to choose howyou respond to their response.
And it may not be the right fit.
It ultimately just may not bethe right fit.
But that's not where we start,as you were saying, right?
That's not where we start.
(31:49):
but to not have that as anoption that's on the table, I
don't think is very prudenteither.
Right?
It's not a starting point, butat some point, it is a round peg
in a square hole.
At some point, there are choicesbeing made about, do you not
want to be on this team withthis culture?
With these values and thesebehavioral norms and I think,
(32:10):
you know, one of the things thatI heard, I think, from Kim Scott
was, it's your moral obligationto give people guidance.
It is your moral obligation togive people guidance, as a
leader.
Mike Goldman (32:21):
I want to flip this on its head a little bit.
so when we think about difficultconversations, and it's not
always about somebodyunderperforming, it may be a lot
of things that it may bebusiness or it may be personal,
but we often think, how do weenter into those conversations
and I love the term carefrontation, and I love the term
ruinous empathy is what you'redoing.
(32:43):
if you're missing thatconversation, not having that
conversation, but when I say Iwant to turn it on its head, I
also want to see if we coulddive into something that may
help leaders help to ensure thatpeople are willing to have the
difficult conversation withthem, that if I am a CEO.
(33:05):
And there's someone on my seniorleadership team that sees me
doing something that's hurtingthe team.
Or there's someone on myleadership team that disagrees
with the decision that I'vemade.
I've seen leaders that throughtheir attitude and through their
behavior are very easy toconfront on those things.
(33:28):
And therefore their teamconfronts them.
And I've seen leaders wherepeople are scared to death to
confront them.
Chalmers Brothers (33:35):
Yep.
Mike Goldman (33:35):
What advice can we give a leader so that people are
more open to having to give?
That's wonderful.
That's difficult conversationswith them.
Wonderful.
Chalmers Brothers (33:45):
My wonderful.
My initial immediate reaction isexplicit is better than implicit
almost all the people that I'veknown in positions of leadership
in organizations have somehistory of understanding that
upward feedback to leaders canbe dangerous in some way, shape
(34:06):
or form that either you heard astory, you had it yourself, you
experienced it with your dad.
It doesn't matter.
Right?
I mean, this goes way back.
To authority in our lives andour personal lives at work.
number 1, if leaders want.
To hear from their directreports.
My experience is almost 100percent of the time.
(34:27):
They're going to have toexplicitly say this, they're
going to have to explicitlyrequest this feedback because
almost never by them sayingnothing is the unspoken
assumption going to be.
It's okay that they want it.
number 1, number 2, There's agreat expression.
There's a term out there that Ithink is very helpful and it's
(34:50):
called public identity, right?
Again, one of my other basicclaims that I use with the big
eyeball is we are not hermits.
We are already interdependent.
We already live and work withand through communities of other
human beings already at work andour families in my rotary club,
(35:10):
church, and civic, we are nothermits.
So the term is public identity,meaning.
How you show up for otherpeople, how other people
perceive you, right?
So the claim is this the world.
One question is it possible thatthe way you see you is not
exactly the way others see you?
(35:33):
Yes.
In fact, it's virtuallyguaranteed.
It's not right.
It's not wrong.
It's not good.
It's not bad.
It just is.
So now we get to ask anothercouple of questions.
Number one.
Do you know as a leader howyou're being perceived by the
most important, in this case,professional constituencies in
(35:54):
your life, and is that what youwant?
Because Mike, the claim is this,the world does not interact with
who you think you are.
The world does not interact withyour personal private
conversation about yourself.
The world interacts with what itsees, and you can be aware of
that or not.
And so now we have a term calledblind spot, and we have a term
(36:17):
called bull in a china shop.
So the bull in china shop, goingthrough my day, going through my
life as a leader, leaving behinda wake of upset people,
diminished opportunities, closeddoors, and, oh, I sleep
gloriously well at night,blissfully unaware of the damage
I've done.
Gloriously unaware.
(36:39):
With the relationships I've shutdown, the communication channels
that are now turned off, theopportunities that are now
diminished.
And yet, I wonder why nobodywants to sit by me on the couch.
Right, and this notion, publicidentity, you know, one of my
teachers said, Chalmers, if youwant to know something about
yourself, ask somebody else.
(37:00):
Ask somebody else.
And y'all, this, Mike, with thiskind of feedback, a powerful
distinction rides to the rescue.
Being truthful with a little teais not the same as claiming to
have the truth with a big T.
This is crucial.
Being truthful with a little Tis not the same as claiming to
(37:22):
have the truth with a big T.
So one vistage example, right?
You and I speak to these vistagegroups.
Is it possible that you and I Doa Vistage program and everybody
in the group is truthful withthe feedback that we get and we
get 20 different feedbacks.
Is that possible?
Mike Goldman (37:39):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (37:40):
Absolutely.
Happens all the time.
By the
Mike Goldman (37:43):
way, for me, it's 20 different ways of saying how
wonderful I am.
I agree.
I like that.
Chalmers Brothers (37:48):
I like that.
I like that.
and so what's going on iseverybody in the room is being
honest, is being truthful.
With how they perceive you,right?
Being truthful, based on what?
Based on their standards.
Based on their values.
Based on their mood at the time.
Based on their life experiences,right?
And y'all, like, what I say isthis, look, I give you
(38:11):
permission to tell me how I showup for you.
Right?
I give you permission, because Ineed that.
My public identity is at stake.
But with respect, I do not giveyou permission to tell me how I
am.
Because you don't know how I am,but you do know how I show up
for you.
And Mike, this distinctionbetween giving people permission
(38:33):
to tell us how they perceive us,is not giving them permission to
define who we are.
And that separation, right, thathas helped me greatly in
receiving and giving feedback.
Because one more caveat.
Just because a leader's directreports feedback about them,
right?
Just because if they'retruthful, and they give the
(38:55):
leader, this is how they areperceived.
Just because that feedback isn'tthe truth with a capital T,
doesn't mean it may not beuseful.
So it's not the truth, but if 18out of 20 say I'm rude, I need
to pay attention to that,because my public identity is at
stake.
(39:15):
And those are the conversations.
I think that having some newdistinctions, right?
The distinction public identitycan help here.
The distinction truthful is notthe same as the truth can help
here in these conversations.
Mike Goldman (39:27):
It reminds me of something I do.
There's an exercise I do withleaders called the peer
accountability exercise.
Where they go around and giveeach other feedback.
Here's something you do thathelps the team that I want to
thank you for.
Here's something you do that Ireally wish you'd work on
because it's a nice team.
And one of the things I teachleaders, and I start with the
CEO, getting feedback.
(39:47):
Cause I want the CEO to model itfor the rest of the group is
when they get feedback, theycould ask a question if they
don't understand it, but if theyunderstand it, not agree with
it, if they understand it, theironly response.
Thank you.
Chalmers Brothers (40:04):
Yeah, perfect.
Mike Goldman (40:05):
And I say, look, you're not thanking the other
person because you agree withthem or even that you're going
to act on what they're tellingyou.
You're thanking them for beingopen and honest.
You're thanking them for caringenough.
You're thanking them for beingpassionate enough about, about
the business and about you fortelling you.
what they're observing.
Chalmers Brothers (40:26):
What do you call that?
I love that.
Mike Goldman (40:28):
I call it the peer accountability exercise.
Chalmers Brothers (40:30):
That's fantastic.
I've heard of something verysimilar called start, stop,
continue.
And it sounds right.
It sounds because what's key islike a level.
You said, just because I get thefeedback from you.
Number one, I don't have toagree with it to thank you for
it.
And number two, I'm not agreeingright now to do anything about
(40:51):
it in this moment.
But I am agreeing to talk aboutit.
I am agreeing to have aconversation about it, but I,
because I don't know what yourfeedback is going to be.
So I'm not agreeing ahead oftime to implement, but I love
that, and think about and this,I think is so consistent with
again, the way Jim Collins callsa level 5 leader, right?
(41:12):
I'm comfortable enough in my ownskin to know what I know.
But I also am okay not knowing.
I mean, there are, there, thereare aspects of obviously no
human being knows everything.
We don't know how we're beingperceived.
We don't know how other peoplesee us.
and I really like the term blindspot.
I think blind spots do exist.
(41:33):
And I think most of thecoaching, right?
when we think about the coachingleaders give to their director.
Reports and their teams andtheir peers, you know, for that
matter, I think a lot of thatcoaching is to help people
address blind spots, things thatthey just don't see, right?
Intention is not equal impactbecause I believe there's
people.
(41:53):
Most people don't wake up in themorning.
Oh, let's see.
How can I self sabotage andlimit my career today?
We don't, right?
We get up in the morning and wedo the best we can based on the
observer.
We are right based on what wesee.
And how we see it.
But these conversations, whatyou've pointed to, right?
Having the peer accountabilityconversation.
(42:16):
Think how different it would beto not have those conversations.
Leaders are conversationalarchitects.
They created that, right?
Let's create a conversationalspace where we have this kind of
interaction.
And it's yet another way thatlanguage creates, right?
It creates a new awareness.
It creates new energy foraction.
Mike Goldman (42:36):
And what you're helping me to realize is, you
know, it's one of my favoriteexercises that I do with
leadership teams and you'rehelping me.
And thinking about the value itadds, I'm, I know the value it
adds.
That's why I love the exercise,but the value it's adding, and I
just never thought about it thisway is if you think about your
kind of premise that, a lot oforganizations that they have
(42:59):
some number of missingconversations and the more
missing conversations you have.
The worse your results are goingto be the peer accountability
exercise that I do is a way tomake sure that we're having more
of I'm forcing more of thoseconversations.
Yes.
And that's such a powerful wayto think about it.
Chalmers Brothers (43:19):
I love that.
Mike, I love that.
And as you said, that 1 questionI like to ask in this context is
okay.
Everybody has a public identity.
Who is responsible for yourpublic identity?
If not you, who?
But how can you takeresponsibility for something if
you've got no data?
(43:40):
How can you take responsibilityfor something if you have no
information?
And that is a powerful thing tohave enough people in your life
that you've created enough trustthat they are actually willing
to share with you how theyperceive you.
That is a beautiful, if you havesome of those in your
professional and personal life.
(44:01):
Fortunately for me, beingmarried 38 years, I have a
wonderful at home spouse who isabsolutely comfortable sharing
with me how she sees me, how Ishow up for her.
Especially in cases where Imight need to make a mid course
adjustment or two.
Right?
But to have somebody in yourlife, that's a valuable thing.
(44:22):
To have somebody professionallyand personally, or more than 1
person at work.
Right.
But I like what you said, Ithink if leaders are going to do
that, they have to model it.
They have to do it.
They have to be the example.
Mike Goldman (44:33):
Yeah, I also want to ask you, you have a
methodology if methodology isthe right word called soar.
S.O.A.R.
What is that?
How does that fit into whatwe're talking?
Chalmers Brothers (44:46):
Yep, soar is my.
In house, outsourced,comprehensive leadership and
personal development program fororganizations not big enough to
have their own internalleadership development program.
in a nutshell, I believe this,Mike, there are five core
(45:07):
competencies required forsuccess in organizations.
Functional, technical,conversational, relational, and
emotional.
Maybe there's four, maybethere's six, but something like
this is going on.
My experience is in manyorganizations, certainly that
are vistage size, right?
So we're not talking GeneralMotors, Coca Cola, but the
(45:28):
vistage size, hundreds ofmillion dollars of revenue, tens
of million dollars of revenue.
That many of them, number one,people get promoted into
positions of leadership becausethey demonstrate excellence in
functional and technicalcompetencies right?
Now, in my experience,functional and technical
competencies, number one, havebecome threshold competencies,
meaning many organizations saythis is the cost of admission,
(45:52):
right?
This is what gets most peoplehired, right?
You can't play the game withoutfunctional and technical
competencies.
But when we think aboutleadership and management, those
are not the competencies mostrequired for success as a
leader.
Now we're talking here aboutconversational, relational, and
emotional competencies.
SOAR, my program, is aboutconversational, relational, and
(46:14):
emotional competency building.
Because these are thecompetencies needed, I believe,
for effective leadership,management, teamwork.
And think about this.
These are the competenciesneeded for culture building.
To build a culture, you don'tneed a hammer and nails.
These are the competenciesneeded for trust building.
For customer service.
(46:35):
Right.
And so it's a six month, sixmodule program that stands for
Success Through Observer ActionResults.
So this model, Observer ActionResults, I think was invented
back in the 60s, maybe.
Chris Argyris and Robert Putnam,these guys from systems think,
you know, systems thinking goingway back into the post TQM.
(46:59):
Literature came up with thisnotion, and one of the initial
words for it was single anddouble loop learning.
So the notion is, again thinkobserver, action, results.
Number one, the results weproduce in our lives are based
on the actions we take or don'ttake.
This is obvious.
And, many of the actions leaderstake are not physical, like
(47:21):
chopping down a tree.
No, they're conversations! Soactions equals conversations and
results equals quantitative andqualitative outcomes.
A quantitative result calledexecution and productivity, and
a qualitative result calledculture, right, levels of trust
and cohesion.
The notion is we take action andproduce results.
(47:42):
Sometimes we produce positiveresults, in which case, hooray,
head on down the road, we'regoing to do these actions again
because they worked.
Sometimes we produce negativeresults, of course, in which
case single loop learning orfirst order learning, you draw
an arrow from results back toactions, which means take
another action and do it again.
Take another action and do itagain.
(48:04):
So what's the definition of acrazy person
Mike Goldman (48:08):
doing
Chalmers Brothers (48:09):
the same thing over and over again,
expecting a different firstorder learning is you don't do
that.
You take another action.
Now, where the model getsinteresting, and why I like it
for my SOAR program, is if youtake all the actions you see as
possible, and you run out ofbullets, right, you're done.
You don't know what else to do.
It's possible another personshows up, and in five minutes
(48:30):
you're like, I didn't see itthat way.
The notion is a new observer hasshowed up.
So in this model, Mike, inaddition to, if you don't like
the results you're producing,first order learning is an arrow
back to actions.
Second order learning is anarrow back to the observer.
And in the observer are thosethree circles.
Language, Moods, and Body.
(48:53):
And this says this.
If you don't like the resultsyou're producing, you can take a
look at how you look at things.
You can bring the observer youare into the equation and look
at your beliefs, not justthrough them.
Look at your presuppositions,not just through them.
Look at your moods and emotionsand how they're coloring your
narratives.
(49:13):
Look at how you carry yourselfphysically and how that's
impacting your moods.
We can become a more powerfulobserver of the observer that we
are.
And that model for me was a gamechanger, right?
And that's why I, because in mySOAR program, I don't think you
can have leadership developmentwithout personal development.
(49:35):
I think they are the same, Mike,they're the same and my little
subtitle for SOAR is innergrowth, outer growth, real
results.
But a lot of the growth that weneed is inner growth.
It's inner growth.
It's becoming a more powerfulobserver of myself.
It's taking responsibility formy internal narratives.
(49:57):
And Mike, one of the shifts thatI found to be giantly, and it
was huge in my life, and it'snow an integral part of my SOAR
program, is to help people movepast the right wrong orientation
toward interpretations andexplanations, and adopt the
powerful unpowerful or effectiveineffective orientation.
(50:19):
Because here's a claim.
And again, it's all based onlooking at language this way,
right?
The claim is that we live inlanguage, you and me and
everybody, which means thelittle voice is rarely silent,
right?
Because the little voice israrely silent, what we do, we're
confronted with events at homeand at work, events everywhere,
and what we do as humans, wemake up stories about these
(50:42):
events, we hold these stories tobe the truth, and we forget that
we made them up.
And when we use the word storyin this context, it doesn't mean
fib or fabrication.
It's not a purposefulmanipulation.
And Mike, it's not a selfdeception.
It's simply an interpretation,an explanation.
So a fantastically powerfuldistinction for us to have is
(51:05):
event is not equal explanation.
Event.
is not equal explanation.
And the reason this is soimportant is this.
Is it the events of your life oryour explanations about those
events that are more influentialas to the actual actions you
(51:26):
take in the world?
Which is it?
The explanation.
And out of the actual actionsyou take, observer, action,
result, you produce results.
Quantitative and qualitativeresults.
And the key separation is eventis not equal explanation.
I believe this vistage groups,high functioning leadership peer
(51:48):
groups.
Every member already understoodthat before they met me because
they regularly bring theirexplanations to the table in
issue processing and invitetheir colleagues to poke holes
in them.
It's one of the reasons
Mike Goldman (52:03):
why one of the key questions.
When I'm sane enough to rememberone of the key questions I asked
myself, one of the key questionsI asked during my coaching
sessions, getting to the, youknow, it's the story we're
telling is to ask yourself thequestion when there's a
situation that's frustratingyou, or you can't figure it out,
(52:25):
or how could this person do thatis to ask the question, what
else could this mean?
Chalmers Brothers (52:30):
Perfect
Mike Goldman (52:31):
because we give it meaning and we think it's, we
think it's your words.
We think it's the capital T truewhen no, it's just our truth in
the moment based on the storywe're telling.
So this is beautiful stuff.
so people, Chalmers, if peoplewant to find out more about your
SOAR program or anything elseyou do to help leaders and help
your clients, where should theygo?
Chalmers Brothers (52:51):
Wonderful.
Thank you for asking.
My website is my name,chalmersbrothers.com.
My email address is info@chalmers brothers.
I can be reached there.
I'm starting a YouTube.
I'm starting to be more activeas of this month on a YouTube
channel.
I'm going to have very shortvideos and Mike.
I'm going to ask.
I may send you a link.
If you'll help me kind of spreadthe word on that.
(53:13):
It'll be my I've had the channelfor years, but have done very
little with it.
Almost nothing with it.
So I'm now making a newcommitment in 25 to be more
active.
In short videos, and, I wouldlove to work with organizations
of all sizes.
I mean, it's my, this isn't justmy job.
This is my particular passion inlife.
I believe our organizations needthis body of learning.
(53:35):
I believe our families needthis.
I believe.
Our societies need this, right?
this notion of, being aware thatwe are each unique observers
necessarily seeing andinterpreting based on all the
things that make us who we are.
And that's the starting point,hopefully for living and working
together well.
Mike Goldman (53:53):
Beautiful.
Well, Chalmers, I always say, ifyou want a great company, you
need a great leadership team.
Thanks so much for helping usget there today.
Chalmers Brothers (54:02):
It's a giant pleasure.
Thanks for the opportunity.
It's been great to know you.
Mike Goldman (54:05):
Same here.
If you don't like the results you're
producing, you can take a lookat how you look at things.
You can bring the observer youare into the equation and look
at your beliefs, not justthrough them.
Look at your presuppositions,not just through them.
Look at your moods and emotionsand how they're coloring your
narratives.
Look at how you carry yourselfphysically and how that's
(00:24):
impacting your moods.
We can become a more powerfulobserver of the observer that we
are.
And that model for me was a gamechanger, I don't think you can
have leadership developmentwithout personal development.
I think they are the same, But alot of the growth that we need
is inner growth.
It's becoming a more powerfulobserver of myself.
(00:44):
And It's taking responsibilityfor my internal narratives.
Mike Goldman (00:56):
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
(01:16):
world by building a betterleadership team.
All right, let's go.
Chalmers Brothers is a bestselling author, certified
executive coach and professionalspeaker, and long time provider
(01:36):
of leadership and personaldevelopment programs within
organizations around the world.
His 38 year career is focused onself awareness, the centrality
of conversations for leadershipand organizational success, and
a new and powerful way ofunderstanding language and its
role in our lives.
We're certainly gonna Dig intothat.
(01:58):
He's written two books, Languageand the Pursuit of Leadership
Excellence and Language and thePursuit of Happiness.
They've been translated intoSpanish and Japanese with Korean
and Mandarin translationscheduled for 2025.
My books are barely in English,so that's pretty impressive.
So we're going to dive deepinto, how to have powerful
(02:19):
conversations.
First, we both have a verysimilar background, Chalmers and
I, both started our career atwhat's now called Accenture, but
I think both of us are so oldthat it was Anderson Consulting.
And at least when I started, itwas actually not even Anderson
Consulting.
it was a consulting arm ofArthur Anderson and company.
Chalmers Brothers (02:37):
When I joined, it was M.
I.
C.
D.
The management informationconsulting division of Arthur
Anderson.
This you're right.
So we were both pre AndersonConsulting even.
Mike Goldman (02:47):
Yeah.
and if you're like me, I always,whenever I say, you know, the
consulting division of ArthurAnderson, I always have to say,
not the guys that got introuble.
I know.
But you know what?
Most people don't even rememberthat at this point.
So they say that and they'relike.
What are you talking about?
Chalmers Brothers (03:02):
I
Mike Goldman (03:02):
get it.
Chalmers Brothers (03:03):
You're right.
Mike Goldman (03:03):
so we, but we both have that Accenture Anderson
Consulting, Arthur Anderson,whatever you want, MICD,
whatever you want to call it inour background.
and we both, have spent a lot oftime, speaking on the, Vistage
Circuit, which is a greatorganization of CEOs and
beautiful mastermind groups.
so we both have that background.
Anyway, as I always do, I'mgoing to start with, with a
(03:26):
really important question, giventhe, the title of the show and
the audience of the show, andthat's Chalmers, from all of
your, you know, 38 or so yearsof experience, what do you
believe is the number onecharacteristic of a great
leadership team?
Chalmers Brothers (03:42):
You know, my mind immediately goes to very
few missing conversations.
Very few, if any, missingconversations.
I believe this, Mike.
Leaders get paid to haveeffective conversations.
Leaders are conversationalarchitects and conversational
engines.
Right?
So when I think about aleadership team, the ability to
(04:05):
have conversations that matter,The ability to have very few
missing conversations andthere's a term I learned.
I didn't learn this in mycoaching world.
I learned it in Vistage.
I've been fortunate enough, thisis my 28th year speaking on the
Vistage Network.
And the term, Mike, iscarefrontation.
The term is carefrontation.
(04:26):
To me, solid, powerfulleadership teams are
characterized by carefrontation.
I care enough about you.
I care enough about us toinitiate a conversation that in
this very moment, I'm not 100percent sure how it's going to
go.
But I care about, I care moreabout what we're up to.
(04:47):
I care more about our movementin the market.
I care more about your careertrajectory than I do about my
hands, not sweating.
And it's this combination,right, of care and the
willingness to be direct andconfront with what needs to be
talked about.
And when I think about it, whatfor me separates, at least one
thing that separatescarefrontation from
(05:07):
confrontation.
In care frontation, I speak intomy concerns, Mike.
I have a concern, man, that theway I want to say something may
come out wrong.
I care about you.
I care about us, but I need tohave a conversation with you.
I'm not exactly sure how to haveit.
And Mike, when I say very fewmissing conversations, and I say
care frontation, I also want tosay that these leadership teams.
(05:30):
are characterized by integrityand integrity to me.
One of my favorite definitionsis the inner is the outer.
They're integrated.
Are you with me?
So if I have an inner concern, acare that I have inside and I
speak it outside, just like itis inside, you feel it.
(05:51):
I mean, this to me, can't befaked.
Right.
It can't be faked.
And whether we use the wordsauthenticity or vulnerability or
integrity or sincerity, to me,it's the quality of
conversations that separategreat leadership teams from
others.
And Mike, I think, man, I thinkit's the quality of these
conversations that separategreat relationships from okay
(06:14):
relationships, great parentingfrom okay parenting.
Mike Goldman (06:18):
I love when you said it can't be faked because
one of the things that I see,and more importantly for me
personally, one of the things Istruggled with earlier in my
career, when I say earlier in mycareer, when I was in my 40s
versus 60, so not a kid, but Iwould read the books that said
(06:39):
things like, don't dictate, askyour team questions that talked
about how to have the difficultconversation that talked about
being open and honest, but to mefor a good time, those were
techniques.
Chalmers Brothers (06:54):
Yep.
Mike Goldman (06:55):
So it wasn't really who I was.
I was just using the techniquesversus truly, you know, I found
until I changed my attitude.
That stuff wasn't real and itdidn't come across as real.
Chalmers Brothers (07:09):
No, you know, that reminds me when I was in my
mid twenties.
Now again, I'm going way backwhen I was in my mid twenties.
I was rock solid certain that ifyou didn't see things like I
did, you were stupid.
And it's amazing how nobody evertaught me that right.
That was simply part of how Igrew up and it wasn't explicitly
taught.
(07:29):
But I was convinced that the wayI saw things was authentic.
And it took me years, Mike, toget comfortable enough in my own
skin to say, I don't know.
I mean, number one, I reallythought I was objective.
I thought the way I saw theworld was the way the world was.
And a giant piece of learning inmy ontological coaching
background is this claim that weare each unique observers.
(07:53):
By definition, it's not just asnowflake is different.
no, everything in nature isdifferent.
No two trees are the same.
No two camels are the same.
No two grains of sand are thesame.
Not really.
No two stars are the same.
Nothing in nature is the same.
So nature apparently doesn'treplicate, it creates.
And we're part of nature.
(08:14):
So the thing I did not see in mymid twenties was that everybody,
myself included, has aparticular perspective on
objective reality.
But nobody has access to the wayit is.
And that's starting point.
was my starting point to beginto acknowledge that I don't know
and being comfortable enough inmy own skin to say I don't know.
(08:39):
And really one of the worstexperiences I ever had in my
professional life.
I won't say who the client was,but it was early and it was an
educational institution.
And I was the only person in theroom pretty much that did not
have a PhD.
Now, I got challenged on somethings and I wanted to be right.
(09:00):
And it tailstunned into ahorrible, terrible event.
And as I, and that I learnedfrom, that I learned from, that
I'm in the business of sharingdistinctions, helping people see
some things, but I don't havethe one way.
And it reminds me of JimCollins's, right, Level 5
(09:20):
leaders, right, this incrediblecombination of tremendous
commitment and motivation andpurpose and humility.
And it took me from probably 25to 35 to get an appropriate dose
of humility to be comfortableenough in what I did know to not
be threatened by what I didn'tknow.
Mike Goldman (09:42):
You learned it quicker than I did.
I was at my forties, but, and Ido want, I want to get back to
this idea of ontologicalcoaching partially because as a.
Kid growing up in the Bronx, Idon't, I tend to not understand
five syllable words,delicatessen.
I get that one.
I do want to get back to that,but before I do, especially
(10:03):
because we both started out withthat similar background back in
the management consulting days,how did you go from that?
To writing and speaking andcoaching and where your focus is
today,
Chalmers Brothers (10:17):
you know, like a lot of things, it's hard
to connect the dots lookingforward, but looking back, we
kind of can.
Right?
And so I have a engineeringbackground and an MBA and right.
I went to Anderson consultingout of grad school doing fine
there.
in 1987, Mike, one year into mymarriage, I've been married 38
years.
And I know in my heart the bodyof learning that is the basis of
(10:41):
both of my books that body oflearning is a giant reason I
have a 38 year marriage and nota one year marriage.
I know that in my heart.
No doubt about it.
And so long story short, my wifeand I, some friends of ours, we
were in New Orleans.
Some friends of ours went to aworkshop in Baton Rouge and
would not be quiet.
They simply would not be quiet.
(11:02):
You guys got to go.
You guys got to go.
You guys got to go.
Mike in my head.
I was this number one.
I'm not really sure what aworkshop is.
Number two.
I'm pretty sure I don't needone.
And number three, I was soarrogant.
Number three, if I haven't heardof this already, how good can it
be?
And they finally said, look, wewill pay for you to go, both of
you.
It's not for couples, but wewent as a couple.
(11:24):
We think y'all would do greattoo.
And if you don't think it'sworth it, don't pay us back.
So that got my attention.
My wife and I went, Mike, and itwas, and again, I don't use this
term as I'm introducing a lot ofmy work, but it was my
introduction to something calledontological coaching.
Now that term is a mouthful.
An ontological coaching,literally translated.
(11:46):
That means coaching people intheir way of being.
Ontology has to do with howthings are, but the being of
things.
So one implication is there'smore than one way to be.
And I have to say, I was sittingthere as a one year, you know,
maybe my second year consultantat Anderson Consulting.
My wife was in medical school, Ithink, at the time still.
(12:07):
And I, I just, I had anepiphany.
It was like, I was so certainabout many things.
When I walked in and Mike aboutmidday Saturday, I wasn't
certain about a lot of stuff.
I was in like a free fall about,I was completely certain, for
example, that my relationshipwith my wife was a 9.5 outta 10
at that point in our marriage,right?
We were copacetic, cognitively,emotionally, same sense of
(12:31):
humor, all that stuff.
I realized it's a 9.5 if ten'sright here.
But what if 10's in the clouds?
What if I had artificiallylimited the single most
important relationship in mylife, and here's the kicker, and
had been utterly unaware I wasdoing that?
That cost me an hour in my head.
(12:51):
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
I had, it was a giant wake upcall.
and a lot of it was, it jarredme out of my terminal certainty.
I was so certain how certainthings were and after a weekend,
I was not certain, but I hadthis incredible combination of
(13:12):
emotions after that firstworkshop, I had an incredible
right side by side, regret andambition, right side by side,
regret for, you know, look athow I've been being, look at how
I've been treating my wife, lookat how I've been treating my mom
and dad, look at how I was, howarrogant.
I was in so many areas and theambition was okay.
(13:32):
I got a whole new toolkit.
I got a whole new body oflearning that aims me in this
direction.
And one of the new things, thenew tools, the new distinctions
was this notion that languagecreates and generates.
Language is not simply a passivetool for describing how things
are.
Yes, we describe with language,but that's not all that we do.
(13:54):
We open and close possibilities,right?
We create context.
We influence our moods andemotions.
We influence our physicalbodies.
It was the first time I'd everheard that.
Right?
I never heard that.
And there were three aspects toour way of being that were
introduced in that very firstworkshop and are still central
(14:15):
in my life.
Imagine three circles that areinterconnected.
One is language, internal andexternal narratives.
The other is moods and emotions.
And the other is body andbiology.
And think about it.
These are connected andcongruent in you, in me, in all
human beings.
This is why, for example, wefeel better, which is mood,
(14:36):
after we exercise, which isbody.
That's kind of why we do it.
And when you exercise and feelbetter, now we're up to
language, now do you notinterpret the same flat tire or
offhand comment a bitdifferently?
Yes.
There's a coherency, and thatcoherency wants to be coherent.
And so that means you can shifthow you walk and shift your
(14:58):
mood.
You can shift your mood throughmusic and you shift how you
walk.
You can think differently andyou'll walk differently or
breathe differently.
And so it was this introductionto wait.
I've got three avenues forintervening on the coherency
that is me.
And the notion is, in some ways,that we're not human beings,
(15:20):
we're human becomeings.
We're in an ongoing process ofbecoming a unique, a new
observer.
So that combination, that uniquecombination that's you right
now, that combination that's meright now, one question I ask in
my workshops is, okay, let'sacknowledge we are each unique
observers, right?
If we took a tour of thisbuilding, And we stayed together
(15:43):
and we came back and the tourguide said, what did you notice?
How many different answers isthe tour guide going to get?
He's going to get, or she'sgoing to get, how many people
went on the tour?
Happens all the time.
So we're unique observers.
The next question is, are you,however, the same observer now
than you were when you were 17?
(16:04):
No.
And how did that change this?
Was it one morning in 2020, wewoke up and whoosh, the world
had changed.
No.
It's every moment.
And this is why I genuinely,Mike, I think we are not human
beings.
We are human becomings and partof my work.
And I bet yours too, if youlooked at it this way, part of
(16:26):
our work, I think has to do withhelp people become more powerful
and more competent observers ofthemselves, helping them see
what they didn't see before sothey can do what they couldn't
do before.
Have what they couldn't havebefore and be what they couldn't
be before.
Mike Goldman (16:43):
let's take this and relate it to the leader.
That's a part of a team or theleader that has a team.
And one of the things I knowwhen I was researching some of
your materials, you sayleadership and management are
primarily conversationalcompetencies.
(17:05):
Let's take what you're talkingabout on this way of being and
the three different areas ofthat relate that to what does
that mean that leadership andmanagement are primarily
conversational competencies.
Chalmers Brothers (17:17):
This is wonderful.
One of the things I do.
In all of my workshops.
like, I have a longer program,but I also have a half day
program.
I have more than that on theVistage circuit, but my main
program on Vistage, right?
It's called leadership,conversations and results.
so one of the activities I doright out of the gate.
With my Vistage clients and mycorporate clients, and they're
(17:39):
all in a room.
I have on a piece of paper, Isay, look, okay, as a leader.
What do you get paid to do?
What do you get paid to do And Isaid, look, everybody here does
10,000 things of the 10,000things you currently do right
now as your job, as a leader, atwhatever level you are, what
would you say right now are themost important one or two or
(17:59):
three things right now that yousay you get paid to do as a
leader?
And Mike, you've been around along time as I have, we know the
answers are going to be thingslike.
To set the example, to lead byexample, to steward a powerful
culture, to drive continuousprocess improvement, to foster
an environment of innovation, tocoach, to mentor, to guide, to
(18:20):
facilitate, and all these arespot on.
My next question is always,okay, let's pretend I have
infiltrated your office and I'msneaking around watching you do
all the things you just said youget paid to do.
I'm watching you steward apowerful culture.
I'm watching you coach andmentor and guide.
(18:41):
I'm watching you foster anenvironment of powerful
innovation.
I'm watching you be the face ofthe organization.
The question is, what would acamera see as it sees you doing
that?
I'm watching you with my eyes doall those things.
What do I actually see youdoing?
And with a little reflection,then, well, I would see you
(19:03):
engaging with humans.
And I write the word in bigletters on the flip chart,
conversations.
You get paid to have effectiveconversations.
You get paid to haveconversations, the outcome of
which is something and notsomething else.
And this is so close, we don'tsee it.
This is so obvious, we can missit.
Leaders are conversationalarchitects and conversational
(19:26):
engines.
Because the question is, can yoube a strong leader?
Strong.
Without the ability to lift ahundred pounds over your head.
Yes.
It's a metaphor, right?
You could be a powerful leaderfrom a wheelchair and we have
historical examples all over theplace.
So it's this notion that when weactually look at what leadership
(19:47):
is Leaders don't get paid tohang sheetrock to lay bricks to
fly helicopters to installlandscaping to take people
fishing.
No, leaders get paid to mentor,coach, guide, lead, manage,
facilitate, all of which happensin language, all of which
(20:08):
happens in language.
Mike Goldman (20:09):
so when we think about these conversations.
What are some of the mistakesyou see in how leaders engage in
these conversations or preparefor these conversations?
Chalmers Brothers (20:24):
There's a couple of things that at a
larger level in terms ofmistakes or preparation, I like
to frame it with this claim orwith this tee up a pretend
you're a consultant and you'rebrought in to diagnose
performance inside a company.
And you do you spend a monththere learning and interviewing
and all this stuff and you comeand you have a final report for
(20:48):
senior leaders and what you tellthem is, you know what?
I have discovered that there aretons of missing conversations in
your company, tons ofconversations that people in
their heart know they should behaving, but they're not having
them make a prediction onresults.
What would you predict?
For the quantitative andqualitative results that company
(21:10):
is producing, if you find tonsof conversations that should be
happening but are not.
Almost always the results arebad.
The results are bad in terms ofquality, in terms of innovation,
in terms of mid coursecorrections, all of that.
what prevents us from havingthese sorts of conversations?
One of the mistakes, I think,Mike, and maybe it's not a
(21:32):
mistake, it's just an area thatthey haven't, that they haven't
been exposed to, maybe, orhaven't learned very much, is
the ability to have difficultconversations, well, meaning,
most of these conversations thatyou would categorize, I would
categorize as missing, well,they're conversations that
people are avoiding becausethey're holding them as
difficult or challenging.
Anybody can have an easyconversation.
(21:54):
That separates nobody fromnothing.
That differentiates nothing.
These are the conversations thatare meaningful.
And one of the best things Iever learned about one of the
things that language createscontext.
Language creates context.
Not content.
Context.
For difficult conversations.
(22:14):
The ability to have a difficultconversation well, I believe,
has much more to do With you andI creating a powerful and
supportive context than it doeson us delivering impeccable
content.
And let me share an example thatI mean, that was real for me at
Anderson Consulting in NewOrleans.
(22:34):
I was there one year, a friendof mine was my age, but he was
four years ahead of me and wewere good friends.
We played on the same softballteam.
We drank beer together.
Our wives were good friends,right?
We were very social.
I'm one year in.
He's a five year guy.
I just spent my first year onhis project.
So my good friend was a projectmanager one day.
(22:55):
And now my public identity,Mike, how well I was doing.
I thought it was doing prettywell in the company.
He comes up and said, Chalmersbuddy, I need to have a
conversation with you.
I'm not really sure how to haveit.
I have a concern that you mayoverreact.
To some feedback I'm going togive you and you may think our
friendships in jeopardy Let mesay this our friendship will
(23:16):
never be in jeopardy, but thereare some blind spots in your
work My friend he also said lookyou're telling me at softball
that you want a long career inthe New Orleans office My
concern is if nothing changes onyour part pretty quick.
It's not going to happen for youman, I don't know the best way
to have this conversation.
What I know, we have to havethis conversation and Mike, what
(23:38):
he did, he spoke into hisconcerns.
I have a concern that aconversation I know we need to
have may go sideways.
I have a concern that what youwant in your career may not
happen for you.
I have a concern that you havesome blind spots.
Meaning areas that you're, youknow, there's a great
expression, intention is notequal impact.
(24:01):
Intention is not equal impact.
And he said, buddy, there's somethings, there's some impacts
you're making that you're notintending to make.
And I don't think, I don't seeyou working on them.
So I'm kind of concluding thatyou don't see them, but we have
to have this conversation.
And Mike, all of that, he hadn'teven gotten to the content of
that conversation.
That's context.
(24:23):
And that was the first time inmy life.
That was the first time in mylife.
I was ever on the receiving endof that kind of context,
creating.
That's that genuinely shaped myreceptivity to the message of
content when it finally came.
Mike Goldman (24:38):
I'm so glad that's the example you brought up
because as we're talking.
What's coming into my head thatI want to dive a little deeper
on, and we have now just startedis not only how do you have the
difficult conversations, butvery specifically the difficult
conversations that I see peoplenot have.
(24:59):
And I also like the mistake.
It's not the mistake was not somuch having the conversation in
the wrong way.
The bigger mistake is not havingthe conversation.
I think so.
Where and where I see that.
That is one of the things I dowith my clients every quarter is
I sit with the leadership teamand we assess the performance of
(25:19):
their direct reports and indoing that, we, of course, come
up with every quarter one or twoor five people that are
underperforming.
Very often when I ask, okay,what are we going to do?
Can we coach this person up oris this someone we need to think
(25:40):
about coaching out?
Chalmers Brothers (25:41):
Right.
Mike Goldman (25:43):
When I hear, I think we can coach up, which is
a wonderful answer.
Everybody deserves coaching.
One of the painful things that Ihear that I think is leadership
malpractice is very often theseproblems have been going on for
six months, nine months, twoyears.
And when I say, okay, wow, it'sgoing on two years and yet you
(26:04):
still think you can coach them,help me understand what's going
on there.
They say, well, I haven't reallytalked to them about it yet.
what is it that holds thosefolks back?
Chalmers Brothers (26:15):
You know, there's a couple of things come
up.
Number one, I've been in theVistage community, right?
these are CEOs.
that are executives, businessowners.
And I tell my wife, there's avery low jerk quotient in
Vistage, very few jerks.
They self select out, right?
The big egos do not make it.
They self select out.
(26:35):
That means we do not like firingpeople, right?
They do not like they do notlike letting people go.
One of my Vistage mentors saidsomething to me early.
He said, you know, bad newsdoesn't age well.
Bad news doesn't age well, andas soon as I was introduced to
the term carefrontation, right,in my work and began using it, I
(26:58):
had some people say, you knowwhat, you have to look at a lady
named Kim Scott.
Kim Scott has some stuff outthere and she has a term called
radical candor.
Right, which is the same thing,but Mike in her grid, right?
She has a 4 quadrant grid.
That on the vertical axis is howmuch do you care about the
person.
Right.
That you're talking to on thehorizontal axis is how willing
(27:21):
are you right to confront themdirectly and those for where
those intersect you for verydifferent conversational spaces.
The example you just talkedabout was for me on her grid, an
example of, I have a lot ofcare.
I care for the person.
I care about you as a person,and I'm not willing to confront
(27:43):
you directly.
About A, B, or C.
So it's not that we're nottalking.
It's that we're not talkingdirectly enough.
Because you're not getting themessage.
One question I ask is, Whathappens to good performers when
you leave bad performers inplace long enough?
Bad things start to happen,including them leaving.
(28:03):
Now Mike, I'm a power oflanguage guy.
Right?
My first book is Language in thePursuit of Happiness.
My second book is Language andthe Pursuit of Leadership
Excellence.
Kim Scott coined a term that forme is the most bitingly
excellent encapsulation of whatyou described I have ever
encountered.
She introduced me to the termcalled ruinous empathy.
(28:26):
Ruinous empathy.
And I mean, I have not found aclose second.
When I talk about carefrontation, I share this with my
clients, this notion ruinousempathy because we're not doing
anybody any good.
And in fact, in the Vistageworld, and again, I've been 28
years with this is groups.
I talk about this and theseconversations.
(28:49):
And Mike, I've had people and Ibet you may have to given how
long you've been doing yourwork.
I've had people say Chalmers.
I have to say this.
I had a direct report.
A man on my team.
He was not doing well over time.
I've been avoiding theseconversations with him.
I finally did have what Ithought was and what I look back
and still think was a veryhealthy carefrontation
(29:11):
conversation.
I spoke authentically.
I spoke into my concernsgenuine, right?
and I ended up firing ended upletting him go.
I saw him six months ago at acharity event and he thanked me.
You know what he said?
Mike, you're the only person,man, who cared enough about me
(29:32):
to have this conversation.
I wasn't happy.
I wasn't doing well.
I knew I wasn't doing well.
You weren't the only one.
I found it better.
I found something else.
Right?
But you know what?
Think about that.
That's powerful.
That's, we are not servinganybody, right?
And I know it's the last resortto let people go, but sometimes
it's the right choice.
Again, one of the otherexpressions I learned is
(29:54):
sometimes it's easier to changepeople than it is to change
people.
Say that
Mike Goldman (30:00):
one more time Sometimes
Chalmers Brothers (30:03):
it's easier to change people than it is to
change people.
Ah, right?
Because I have some basicclaims, Mike, that I start my
workshops with.
I start with a big eye in thesky looking at a stick person.
You taking a look at youself-awareness, right?
So ultimately, all of the stuffI do ultimately.
(30:23):
What I want to do is help youbecome a more powerful and a
more competent observer ofyourself.
Because basic claim number one,you can't change another human
being, right?
You can change yourself, but youcan't change what you don't
notice.
You can't change what you don'tsee.
Another of my basic claims is weare always at choice.
(30:44):
We human beings, we always havechoices, no matter what.
And we're constantly choosingevery moment of our lives.
And in these situations where weultimately change people, I like
to view it this way.
Because I've had someone say,look man, what happens if you
genuinely have a problem, adirect report, who's not
(31:07):
performing well, an excellentcarefrontation conversation,
fully authentic, fullyvulnerable, and the person
doesn't make the adjustmentsthat we're talking about.
What do you do?
And what initially comes to mindis, are we clear that person is
at choice about how they respondto you?
Now, they may not feel likethey're at choice.
(31:28):
They may not be self awareenough to recognize.
But they are choosing how theyrespond to your conversation.
Well, then you get to choose howyou respond to their response.
And it may not be the right fit.
It ultimately just may not bethe right fit.
But that's not where we start,as you were saying, right?
That's not where we start.
(31:49):
but to not have that as anoption that's on the table, I
don't think is very prudenteither.
Right?
It's not a starting point, butat some point, it is a round peg
in a square hole.
At some point, there are choicesbeing made about, do you not
want to be on this team withthis culture?
With these values and thesebehavioral norms and I think,
(32:10):
you know, one of the things thatI heard, I think, from Kim Scott
was, it's your moral obligationto give people guidance.
It is your moral obligation togive people guidance, as a
leader.
Mike Goldman (32:21):
I want to flip this on its head a little bit.
so when we think about difficultconversations, and it's not
always about somebodyunderperforming, it may be a lot
of things that it may bebusiness or it may be personal,
but we often think, how do weenter into those conversations
and I love the term carefrontation, and I love the term
ruinous empathy is what you'redoing.
(32:43):
if you're missing thatconversation, not having that
conversation, but when I say Iwant to turn it on its head, I
also want to see if we coulddive into something that may
help leaders help to ensure thatpeople are willing to have the
difficult conversation withthem, that if I am a CEO.
(33:05):
And there's someone on my seniorleadership team that sees me
doing something that's hurtingthe team.
Or there's someone on myleadership team that disagrees
with the decision that I'vemade.
I've seen leaders that throughtheir attitude and through their
behavior are very easy toconfront on those things.
(33:28):
And therefore their teamconfronts them.
And I've seen leaders wherepeople are scared to death to
confront them.
Chalmers Brothers (33:35):
Yep.
Mike Goldman (33:35):
What advice can we give a leader so that people are
more open to having to give?
That's wonderful.
That's difficult conversationswith them.
Wonderful.
Chalmers Brothers (33:45):
My wonderful.
My initial immediate reaction isexplicit is better than implicit
almost all the people that I'veknown in positions of leadership
in organizations have somehistory of understanding that
upward feedback to leaders canbe dangerous in some way, shape
(34:06):
or form that either you heard astory, you had it yourself, you
experienced it with your dad.
It doesn't matter.
Right?
I mean, this goes way back.
To authority in our lives andour personal lives at work.
number 1, if leaders want.
To hear from their directreports.
My experience is almost 100percent of the time.
(34:27):
They're going to have toexplicitly say this, they're
going to have to explicitlyrequest this feedback because
almost never by them sayingnothing is the unspoken
assumption going to be.
It's okay that they want it.
number 1, number 2, There's agreat expression.
There's a term out there that Ithink is very helpful and it's
(34:50):
called public identity, right?
Again, one of my other basicclaims that I use with the big
eyeball is we are not hermits.
We are already interdependent.
We already live and work withand through communities of other
human beings already at work andour families in my rotary club,
(35:10):
church, and civic, we are nothermits.
So the term is public identity,meaning.
How you show up for otherpeople, how other people
perceive you, right?
So the claim is this the world.
One question is it possible thatthe way you see you is not
exactly the way others see you?
(35:33):
Yes.
In fact, it's virtuallyguaranteed.
It's not right.
It's not wrong.
It's not good.
It's not bad.
It just is.
So now we get to ask anothercouple of questions.
Number one.
Do you know as a leader howyou're being perceived by the
most important, in this case,professional constituencies in
(35:54):
your life, and is that what youwant?
Because Mike, the claim is this,the world does not interact with
who you think you are.
The world does not interact withyour personal private
conversation about yourself.
The world interacts with what itsees, and you can be aware of
that or not.
And so now we have a term calledblind spot, and we have a term
(36:17):
called bull in a china shop.
So the bull in china shop, goingthrough my day, going through my
life as a leader, leaving behinda wake of upset people,
diminished opportunities, closeddoors, and, oh, I sleep
gloriously well at night,blissfully unaware of the damage
I've done.
Gloriously unaware.
(36:39):
With the relationships I've shutdown, the communication channels
that are now turned off, theopportunities that are now
diminished.
And yet, I wonder why nobodywants to sit by me on the couch.
Right, and this notion, publicidentity, you know, one of my
teachers said, Chalmers, if youwant to know something about
yourself, ask somebody else.
(37:00):
Ask somebody else.
And y'all, this, Mike, with thiskind of feedback, a powerful
distinction rides to the rescue.
Being truthful with a little teais not the same as claiming to
have the truth with a big T.
This is crucial.
Being truthful with a little Tis not the same as claiming to
(37:22):
have the truth with a big T.
So one vistage example, right?
You and I speak to these vistagegroups.
Is it possible that you and I Doa Vistage program and everybody
in the group is truthful withthe feedback that we get and we
get 20 different feedbacks.
Is that possible?
Mike Goldman (37:39):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (37:40):
Absolutely.
Happens all the time.
By the
Mike Goldman (37:43):
way, for me, it's 20 different ways of saying how
wonderful I am.
I agree.
I like that.
Chalmers Brothers (37:48):
I like that.
I like that.
and so what's going on iseverybody in the room is being
honest, is being truthful.
With how they perceive you,right?
Being truthful, based on what?
Based on their standards.
Based on their values.
Based on their mood at the time.
Based on their life experiences,right?
And y'all, like, what I say isthis, look, I give you
(38:11):
permission to tell me how I showup for you.
Right?
I give you permission, because Ineed that.
My public identity is at stake.
But with respect, I do not giveyou permission to tell me how I
am.
Because you don't know how I am,but you do know how I show up
for you.
And Mike, this distinctionbetween giving people permission
(38:33):
to tell us how they perceive us,is not giving them permission to
define who we are.
And that separation, right, thathas helped me greatly in
receiving and giving feedback.
Because one more caveat.
Just because a leader's directreports feedback about them,
right?
Just because if they'retruthful, and they give the
(38:55):
leader, this is how they areperceived.
Just because that feedback isn'tthe truth with a capital T,
doesn't mean it may not beuseful.
So it's not the truth, but if 18out of 20 say I'm rude, I need
to pay attention to that,because my public identity is at
stake.
(39:15):
And those are the conversations.
I think that having some newdistinctions, right?
The distinction public identitycan help here.
The distinction truthful is notthe same as the truth can help
here in these conversations.
Mike Goldman (39:27):
It reminds me of something I do.
There's an exercise I do withleaders called the peer
accountability exercise.
Where they go around and giveeach other feedback.
Here's something you do thathelps the team that I want to
thank you for.
Here's something you do that Ireally wish you'd work on
because it's a nice team.
And one of the things I teachleaders, and I start with the
CEO, getting feedback.
(39:47):
Cause I want the CEO to model itfor the rest of the group is
when they get feedback, theycould ask a question if they
don't understand it, but if theyunderstand it, not agree with
it, if they understand it, theironly response.
Thank you.
Chalmers Brothers (40:04):
Yeah, perfect.
Mike Goldman (40:05):
And I say, look, you're not thanking the other
person because you agree withthem or even that you're going
to act on what they're tellingyou.
You're thanking them for beingopen and honest.
You're thanking them for caringenough.
You're thanking them for beingpassionate enough about, about
the business and about you fortelling you.
what they're observing.
Chalmers Brothers (40:26):
What do you call that?
I love that.
Mike Goldman (40:28):
I call it the peer accountability exercise.
Chalmers Brothers (40:30):
That's fantastic.
I've heard of something verysimilar called start, stop,
continue.
And it sounds right.
It sounds because what's key islike a level.
You said, just because I get thefeedback from you.
Number one, I don't have toagree with it to thank you for
it.
And number two, I'm not agreeingright now to do anything about
(40:51):
it in this moment.
But I am agreeing to talk aboutit.
I am agreeing to have aconversation about it, but I,
because I don't know what yourfeedback is going to be.
So I'm not agreeing ahead oftime to implement, but I love
that, and think about and this,I think is so consistent with
again, the way Jim Collins callsa level 5 leader, right?
(41:12):
I'm comfortable enough in my ownskin to know what I know.
But I also am okay not knowing.
I mean, there are, there, thereare aspects of obviously no
human being knows everything.
We don't know how we're beingperceived.
We don't know how other peoplesee us.
and I really like the term blindspot.
I think blind spots do exist.
(41:33):
And I think most of thecoaching, right?
when we think about the coachingleaders give to their director.
Reports and their teams andtheir peers, you know, for that
matter, I think a lot of thatcoaching is to help people
address blind spots, things thatthey just don't see, right?
Intention is not equal impactbecause I believe there's
people.
(41:53):
Most people don't wake up in themorning.
Oh, let's see.
How can I self sabotage andlimit my career today?
We don't, right?
We get up in the morning and wedo the best we can based on the
observer.
We are right based on what wesee.
And how we see it.
But these conversations, whatyou've pointed to, right?
Having the peer accountabilityconversation.
(42:16):
Think how different it would beto not have those conversations.
Leaders are conversationalarchitects.
They created that, right?
Let's create a conversationalspace where we have this kind of
interaction.
And it's yet another way thatlanguage creates, right?
It creates a new awareness.
It creates new energy foraction.
Mike Goldman (42:36):
And what you're helping me to realize is, you
know, it's one of my favoriteexercises that I do with
leadership teams and you'rehelping me.
And thinking about the value itadds, I'm, I know the value it
adds.
That's why I love the exercise,but the value it's adding, and I
just never thought about it thisway is if you think about your
kind of premise that, a lot oforganizations that they have
(42:59):
some number of missingconversations and the more
missing conversations you have.
The worse your results are goingto be the peer accountability
exercise that I do is a way tomake sure that we're having more
of I'm forcing more of thoseconversations.
Yes.
And that's such a powerful wayto think about it.
Chalmers Brothers (43:19):
I love that.
Mike, I love that.
And as you said, that 1 questionI like to ask in this context is
okay.
Everybody has a public identity.
Who is responsible for yourpublic identity?
If not you, who?
But how can you takeresponsibility for something if
you've got no data?
(43:40):
How can you take responsibilityfor something if you have no
information?
And that is a powerful thing tohave enough people in your life
that you've created enough trustthat they are actually willing
to share with you how theyperceive you.
That is a beautiful, if you havesome of those in your
professional and personal life.
(44:01):
Fortunately for me, beingmarried 38 years, I have a
wonderful at home spouse who isabsolutely comfortable sharing
with me how she sees me, how Ishow up for her.
Especially in cases where Imight need to make a mid course
adjustment or two.
Right?
But to have somebody in yourlife, that's a valuable thing.
(44:22):
To have somebody professionallyand personally, or more than 1
person at work.
Right.
But I like what you said, Ithink if leaders are going to do
that, they have to model it.
They have to do it.
They have to be the example.
Mike Goldman (44:33):
Yeah, I also want to ask you, you have a
methodology if methodology isthe right word called soar.
S.O.A.R.
What is that?
How does that fit into whatwe're talking?
Chalmers Brothers (44:46):
Yep, soar is my.
In house, outsourced,comprehensive leadership and
personal development program fororganizations not big enough to
have their own internalleadership development program.
in a nutshell, I believe this,Mike, there are five core
(45:07):
competencies required forsuccess in organizations.
Functional, technical,conversational, relational, and
emotional.
Maybe there's four, maybethere's six, but something like
this is going on.
My experience is in manyorganizations, certainly that
are vistage size, right?
So we're not talking GeneralMotors, Coca Cola, but the
(45:28):
vistage size, hundreds ofmillion dollars of revenue, tens
of million dollars of revenue.
That many of them, number one,people get promoted into
positions of leadership becausethey demonstrate excellence in
functional and technicalcompetencies right?
Now, in my experience,functional and technical
competencies, number one, havebecome threshold competencies,
meaning many organizations saythis is the cost of admission,
(45:52):
right?
This is what gets most peoplehired, right?
You can't play the game withoutfunctional and technical
competencies.
But when we think aboutleadership and management, those
are not the competencies mostrequired for success as a
leader.
Now we're talking here aboutconversational, relational, and
emotional competencies.
SOAR, my program, is aboutconversational, relational, and
(46:14):
emotional competency building.
Because these are thecompetencies needed, I believe,
for effective leadership,management, teamwork.
And think about this.
These are the competenciesneeded for culture building.
To build a culture, you don'tneed a hammer and nails.
These are the competenciesneeded for trust building.
For customer service.
(46:35):
Right.
And so it's a six month, sixmodule program that stands for
Success Through Observer ActionResults.
So this model, Observer ActionResults, I think was invented
back in the 60s, maybe.
Chris Argyris and Robert Putnam,these guys from systems think,
you know, systems thinking goingway back into the post TQM.
(46:59):
Literature came up with thisnotion, and one of the initial
words for it was single anddouble loop learning.
So the notion is, again thinkobserver, action, results.
Number one, the results weproduce in our lives are based
on the actions we take or don'ttake.
This is obvious.
And, many of the actions leaderstake are not physical, like
(47:21):
chopping down a tree.
No, they're conversations! Soactions equals conversations and
results equals quantitative andqualitative outcomes.
A quantitative result calledexecution and productivity, and
a qualitative result calledculture, right, levels of trust
and cohesion.
The notion is we take action andproduce results.
(47:42):
Sometimes we produce positiveresults, in which case, hooray,
head on down the road, we'regoing to do these actions again
because they worked.
Sometimes we produce negativeresults, of course, in which
case single loop learning orfirst order learning, you draw
an arrow from results back toactions, which means take
another action and do it again.
Take another action and do itagain.
(48:04):
So what's the definition of acrazy person
Mike Goldman (48:08):
doing
Chalmers Brothers (48:09):
the same thing over and over again,
expecting a different firstorder learning is you don't do
that.
You take another action.
Now, where the model getsinteresting, and why I like it
for my SOAR program, is if youtake all the actions you see as
possible, and you run out ofbullets, right, you're done.
You don't know what else to do.
It's possible another personshows up, and in five minutes
(48:30):
you're like, I didn't see itthat way.
The notion is a new observer hasshowed up.
So in this model, Mike, inaddition to, if you don't like
the results you're producing,first order learning is an arrow
back to actions.
Second order learning is anarrow back to the observer.
And in the observer are thosethree circles.
Language, Moods, and Body.
(48:53):
And this says this.
If you don't like the resultsyou're producing, you can take a
look at how you look at things.
You can bring the observer youare into the equation and look
at your beliefs, not justthrough them.
Look at your presuppositions,not just through them.
Look at your moods and emotionsand how they're coloring your
narratives.
(49:13):
Look at how you carry yourselfphysically and how that's
impacting your moods.
We can become a more powerfulobserver of the observer that we
are.
And that model for me was a gamechanger, right?
And that's why I, because in mySOAR program, I don't think you
can have leadership developmentwithout personal development.
(49:35):
I think they are the same, Mike,they're the same and my little
subtitle for SOAR is innergrowth, outer growth, real
results.
But a lot of the growth that weneed is inner growth.
It's inner growth.
It's becoming a more powerfulobserver of myself.
It's taking responsibility formy internal narratives.
(49:57):
And Mike, one of the shifts thatI found to be giantly, and it
was huge in my life, and it'snow an integral part of my SOAR
program, is to help people movepast the right wrong orientation
toward interpretations andexplanations, and adopt the
powerful unpowerful or effectiveineffective orientation.
(50:19):
Because here's a claim.
And again, it's all based onlooking at language this way,
right?
The claim is that we live inlanguage, you and me and
everybody, which means thelittle voice is rarely silent,
right?
Because the little voice israrely silent, what we do, we're
confronted with events at homeand at work, events everywhere,
and what we do as humans, wemake up stories about these
(50:42):
events, we hold these stories tobe the truth, and we forget that
we made them up.
And when we use the word storyin this context, it doesn't mean
fib or fabrication.
It's not a purposefulmanipulation.
And Mike, it's not a selfdeception.
It's simply an interpretation,an explanation.
So a fantastically powerfuldistinction for us to have is
(51:05):
event is not equal explanation.
Event.
is not equal explanation.
And the reason this is soimportant is this.
Is it the events of your life oryour explanations about those
events that are more influentialas to the actual actions you
(51:26):
take in the world?
Which is it?
The explanation.
And out of the actual actionsyou take, observer, action,
result, you produce results.
Quantitative and qualitativeresults.
And the key separation is eventis not equal explanation.
I believe this vistage groups,high functioning leadership peer
(51:48):
groups.
Every member already understoodthat before they met me because
they regularly bring theirexplanations to the table in
issue processing and invitetheir colleagues to poke holes
in them.
It's one of the reasons
Mike Goldman (52:03):
why one of the key questions.
When I'm sane enough to rememberone of the key questions I asked
myself, one of the key questionsI asked during my coaching
sessions, getting to the, youknow, it's the story we're
telling is to ask yourself thequestion when there's a
situation that's frustratingyou, or you can't figure it out,
(52:25):
or how could this person do thatis to ask the question, what
else could this mean?
Chalmers Brothers (52:30):
Perfect
Mike Goldman (52:31):
because we give it meaning and we think it's, we
think it's your words.
We think it's the capital T truewhen no, it's just our truth in
the moment based on the storywe're telling.
So this is beautiful stuff.
so people, Chalmers, if peoplewant to find out more about your
SOAR program or anything elseyou do to help leaders and help
your clients, where should theygo?
Chalmers Brothers (52:51):
Wonderful.
Thank you for asking.
My website is my name,chalmersbrothers.com.
My email address is info@chalmers brothers.
I can be reached there.
I'm starting a YouTube.
I'm starting to be more activeas of this month on a YouTube
channel.
I'm going to have very shortvideos and Mike.
I'm going to ask.
I may send you a link.
If you'll help me kind of spreadthe word on that.
(53:13):
It'll be my I've had the channelfor years, but have done very
little with it.
Almost nothing with it.
So I'm now making a newcommitment in 25 to be more
active.
In short videos, and, I wouldlove to work with organizations
of all sizes.
I mean, it's my, this isn't justmy job.
This is my particular passion inlife.
I believe our organizations needthis body of learning.
(53:35):
I believe our families needthis.
I believe.
Our societies need this, right?
this notion of, being aware thatwe are each unique observers
necessarily seeing andinterpreting based on all the
things that make us who we are.
And that's the starting point,hopefully for living and working
together well.
Mike Goldman (53:53):
Beautiful.
Well, Chalmers, I always say, ifyou want a great company, you
need a great leadership team.
Thanks so much for helping usget there today.
Chalmers Brothers (54:02):
It's a giant pleasure.
Thanks for the opportunity.
It's been great to know you.
Mike Goldman (54:05):
Same here.
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