October 21, 2024 • 55 mins
On today's episode of The Communicative Leader, Eric Pfeiffer, a seasoned leadership coach and author join us.
Eric Pfeiffer shares his background in leadership coaching and the challenges he faced in becoming an effective leader. He discusses the need for a leadership operating system that bridges the gap between theory and practice.
We discuss the challenges leaders face in creating a positive culture and addresses the common struggles leaders encounter. We also touch on the role of non-leadership employees in maintaining culture and offers insights on how to support and empower them.
Some other takeaways:
- Learning how to learn is essential for continuous growth and development in leadership. Self-awareness is a fundamental aspect of leadership and can be developed through practical tools and techniques.
- Leadership gravitas is about being a leader worth following, someone who inspires trust, respect, and empowerment.
- Culture is defined by the prevailing attitudes and behaviors of individuals in an organization.
- Leaders can transform culture by changing their own attitudes and behaviors and consistently modeling the desired culture.
Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on the Communicative Leader, we are
looking at the path toleadership mastery and with us
we have Eric Pfeiffer.
He shares his journey intoleadership coaching and the need
for a leadership operatingsystem.
Eric is the founder and CEO ofMPWR Coaching and his unique
approach focuses on developingagain this leadership operating
(00:22):
system.
So again, more on that.
But it provides a framework forleaders to solve problems,
communicate effectively and makedecisions.
Hello and welcome to theCommunicative Leader hosted by
me, dr Leah O'Neillian-Hodges.
My friends call me Dr O.
I'm a professor ofcommunication and a leadership
(00:44):
communication expert.
I'm the communicative leader.
We're working to make your worklife what you want it to be.
Eric, I'm so thrilled to bechatting with you today and
learning more about you and theamazing work that you do in this
arena.
And before we dive in, can yougive us a little of your
background and kind of how yougot started in leadership
(01:07):
coaching?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Absolutely Well.
Leah Dr O, thank you so muchfor having me on your show.
It's a privilege and a pleasure.
Yeah, so my foray intoleadership coaching.
It probably started, like manyothers, which is in my 20s and
early 30s.
I was just trying to figure outhow to be a leader and, quite
(01:30):
frankly, I don't think I had ahandle on what that meant for me
.
I'd read a lot of books.
Up to that point, I did amaster's that did a lot of focus
on leadership andorganizational leadership.
But what I did know is that Iwanted to be able to take on
greater roles and responsibility, which meant I was going to
have more influence over teamsand over parts of organizations.
(01:55):
And two things kind of collided.
One, my desire to be a goodleader and not quite sure what
that meant or what it shouldlook like.
Aside from, you know, what didmy parents do and what were some
of my professors?
What did they do?
My coaches in sports, how didthey operate?
A few bosses I'd had, up tothat point.
But that collided also withconstant feedback that my
(02:21):
influence in different areas ofengaging other people wasn't
always being received.
Well, surprise, surprise, I wasstepping on people's toes.
I was making decisions inisolation.
I wasn't very collaborative anda lot of that not because I was
intentionally trying to be anineffective leader.
I just didn't really understandthe kind of what I would call a
(02:44):
kind of core skill set of howdo you lead well and what is
leadership.
For't really understand thekind of what I would call a kind
of core skill set of how do youlead well and what is
leadership for and what's thepurpose of it.
So, anyways, that my personaljourney, my personal struggles
over many years, I think, beganto open my eyes, to realize you
know what in my conversationswith friends and coworkers and
people that I had traveled atthat time to work with, were
(03:06):
communicating very similarstruggles and frustrations and
everybody was, you know, pickingup the latest and greatest new
book on leadership, going to aconference.
Back then we didn't have manypodcasts back then.
I'm dating myself but justtrying to gather resources.
But at the end of the day, wewere gathering tons of great
(03:26):
resources but still not quitesure how to bridge the gap
between the theoretical, theprinciples that we were reading
about, and our everyday practiceof leadership.
That created a desire in me tostart asking the question well,
(03:47):
how can I begin to bridge thatgap and how can I help others
maybe pick up on some of the keythings that I've learned in my
own journey of trying andworking and hopefully, some
would suggest becoming a betterleader over the years.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yes, yes, excellent and good on you because I notice
a lot in consulting work.
Yes, excellent and good on youbecause I notice a lot in
consulting work.
People say, well, I step ontoes, I make decisions in
isolation, but that's me andthat's it.
They stop and nope, we don'tneed to stop there and we
shouldn't stop there.
And that's amazing that you'reengaging those conversations and
so open to that self-reflectionand you're sharing it with
(04:23):
others.
I really love that.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I appreciate that and I'll tell you what those exact
phrases did come out of my mouthin those earlier years, because
I think there's a part of usthat wants to justify how we're
operating by virtue of well,this is my personality, right as
soon as we start learning somepersonality assessments and
understanding our wiring.
You know, we're looking reallynot for the rationale for why
our leadership is effective, butwhy we don't have to change,
(04:51):
why we don't have to become moreeffective than we already are.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yes, yes, and I think that's a really nice segue.
So my next question you knoweveryone has their own take on
leadership coaching and I thinkyou've kind of already hinted at
some of this.
But, eric, what is your uniqueapproach to leadership coaching
and interacting with others andhelping them achieve where they
want to be?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Absolutely.
It's a great question.
As a professor, you'll knowthat you have all these young,
bright-eyed, bushy-tailedaspiring leaders.
They want to have influence andimpact on the world around them
.
They want to feel like theirengagement in the workplace is
more than just being a cog in amachine, but they want to feel
like they're having somesignificant impact.
They feel purposeful beyondjust their own little cubicle
(05:40):
and their responsibilities.
And that was very much a partof my journey.
And, like I said earlier, youknow, in reading all of these
amazing books and picking up onall this amazing literature, and
you know the conferences andyou get all these, you're
gathering all of these greatideas.
The way that I like to think ofit is, you know, like on our
smartphones, right, we havethese incredible devices that
(06:02):
allow us to go, for example, tothe Apple App Store, and there's
millions of apps that we candownload, and each of those apps
represents a particular problemwe're facing and a particular
solution, and my experience inreading so much leadership
content was that I was getting alot of great, effective but
(06:26):
very focused apps, and what Iwas missing and I didn't realize
this until years later is thatthe reason these devices are so
powerful is because somebody didthe hard work to develop or
create the operating system,which is the parental program,
as it were.
(06:46):
And now I know some computerscientists are going to you know
they're going to.
They're going to attack mebecause of my lack of knowledge
in this front, but I think thisis pretty accurate, that the
operating system that we don'treally think much about.
We just know that every once ina while there's an automatic
update.
That happens while we'resleeping.
Yes, but it's that parentalprogram that really is
responsible for leveraging,stewarding, resourcing all of
(07:09):
the different applications.
So, to play that analogy out,what I realized is I had a lot
of apps, I was trying to do alot of different things in the
space of leadership, but had nokind of overarching parental
program to help me understandhow do I, when do I, where do I
(07:29):
utilize all of these differentleadership apps that I've picked
up over the years?
And so I've spent probably 13years under a former mentor who
helped me in this process, andthen the last probably 10 years
developing what we call aleadership operating system.
And I'll just describe theunique difference between a
(07:50):
leadership operating system,which you know, I don't know
that we may have one of the onlyones out there, and oftentimes
what we run across is when wedownload a leadership app or
read a great book, right on somesingular idea that really kind
of hits us in a great book,right On some single singular
idea that really kind of hits usin a great spot.
We usually develop a tool or aprinciple that allows us to
(08:11):
solve one or two problems thatare immediate problems in our
lives, where a leadershipoperating system gives us the
unique capacity to solve not oneor two specific problems, but
to diagnose, address and solvemillions and millions of
problems, even ones that we'venot yet been confronted by.
And so what I tell people, Isay from your earliest years,
(08:35):
from your parents, from yourteachers, from your coaches,
from your whatever mentors,bosses, we have actually
developed our own internaloperating system, and the way I
define that is kind of theprevailing attitudes and
behaviors that we carry into anysituation that we're confronted
by.
And some of those, some of thatoperating system is effective
(08:56):
and it helps us achieve greatthings, and some of our
operating system is not sohelpful and it actually creates
more problems.
And so our desire is to giveleaders an operating system that
they, their team or theirorganization can download, which
is comprised by a set of corevisual tools that, if we're all
(09:19):
running the same operatingsystem guess what Now?
Communication, problem solving,decision making, you know all of
those features which I believeare what make leadership and
business so difficult suddenlybecome so much simpler, because
we're all speaking the samelanguage, we're all committed to
(09:40):
operating in a very similar way, regardless of our backgrounds
and our preferences and ourpersonalities, and what we've
discovered is for those teamsand organizations who do the
work to download this operatingsystem.
It radically transforms theirability to solve problems, which
I tell people as often as I can, and for your young listeners
(10:01):
out there, I tell them as oftenas I can.
We think the higher you go inleadership is a bigger paycheck,
which that's often true, butthat it's almost like, well, the
higher we go, the easier itgets, the less problems I'm
going to have to deal with.
I don't.
I'm no longer in the trenches.
And I tell people that is theabsolute opposite of what
happens the higher you go, themore problems you know.
More money, more problems andactually that much more
(10:26):
important that we develop ourcognitive skill set that allows
us to identify, diagnose andsolve high-level problems, and
that's exactly what thisoperating system does.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, I love that illustration.
It's so helpful and, too, as aleadership communication scholar
, I just love that you're givingpeople a lens rather than like,
here is your conflict tool topull out and here's your
listening tool to pull out, ohand you have a coaching tool and
that doesn't really help.
It can help us time to time andwe can patch things together,
(11:03):
but, like you said, when we'reall using the same operating
system, wow, talk about apowerful team.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Absolutely, and again , that's.
The operating system has beendeveloped, tried tested,
recalibrated over and over again, and what I encourage leaders
to think about is you know, theoperating systems on our phones
are constantly updating, right.
So you know, we're no longerusing the same version of the
operating system that we startedwith.
It's continually updating and,as leaders, we need the ability
(11:35):
to continually update our ownleadership or personal operating
system as we continue to facenew challenges and want to grow
and evolve ourselves.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, exactly.
And so with that, I bet some ofwhat you have learned and what
you're doing has come from thesetwo amazing books that you've
written Transform yourTrajectory and Leadership
Gravitas.
So can you give us a little bit, maybe the inspiration that led
to these books and justanything else that you want to
share in regard to this writing?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Absolutely yeah.
So there's a variety of reasonsthat somebody might write a
book, and in my formerorganization, which was also a
coaching business, I wasfortunate enough to be a part of
the team that was in charge ofcontent development and curation
, and so we wrote a bunch ofbooks and I learned a little bit
like, wow, there's a lot ofdifferent reasons to write a
(12:31):
book For myself, for ourcoaching business.
We started the coachingbusiness and we're really
focused on the proof in thepudding.
Is this going to work?
Is this operating system goingto transform leaders, teams,
organizations?
Are people going to be willingto pay?
Uh, which is an important partof business, um, those
entrepreneurs out there.
Somebody needs to want to payfor this.
(12:51):
And once we were a few years inand realized this is actually
working, um, I realized, um, weneed to basically introduce
ourselves, um, to this industryand to the world.
And so the first book,leadership Gravitas, was written
with the purpose of kind oflike to act like a calling card.
(13:11):
You know when we would runacross people.
We're just handing this bookout and saying this is who we
are.
If this conversation soundsinteresting, if the problems
you're personally facingresonate with the problems that
we address in the book, then aconversation may be helpful.
The second purpose is one of myoverarching life missions is to
(13:33):
put these tools from thisoperating system there's eight
core tools into the hands of asmany leaders as humanly possible
, and therefore the book allowsus to disseminate.
You know that that first bookrevolves around, kind of our
first core tool, our DNA tool,which gives us a framework for
(13:53):
the kind of leader we want to beand the kind of culture that we
want to create.
Book was written in the samevein.
We just basically said okay,it's time to put the second core
tool out into the world, togive people access to that, and
so Transform your Trajectoryagain revolves around another
core tool that gives us anopportunity to identify the
(14:18):
opportunities in our lives, inour daily kind of going-ons,
where there's opportunity tolearn, to respond, to experience
personal transformation andcommunal transformation.
And so the hope is we're goingto release each of the core
tools book by book.
But I just recently somebodysaid, hey, eric, you know what,
(14:41):
if the next book you could justrelease a kind of brief
introduction to the entireoperating system, because that,
that, that concept is so uniqueand I thought that's a great
idea.
So the next book that I'vealready started on will a brief
introduction to this leadershipoperating system.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Congratulations.
And what an impressive callingcard.
So most people will hand you abusiness card or maybe a shiny
fact sheet, but like I reallyappreciate the effort and
thought that went into into that, that is really cool.
Well, you, you've written books.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You know it's a labor of love.
Is anybody going to?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
care about really love.
Anybody want to read this.
It's gonna help anybody.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Every sentence I pause and I have a moment a
crisis of confidence.
Yes, so obviously you know it'sa labor of love, but at the
same time, it is still one ofthe key ways that we're able to
share ideas and give people whomay not be able to afford the
high level coaching that weprovide for large organizations
(15:43):
an opportunity to be exposed tothese, the high level coaching
that we provide for largeorganizations an opportunity to
be exposed to these ideas andactually to experience their own
personal transformation.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah.
So let's think more about yourmost recent book, transform your
Trajectory.
Can you share a key insightthat leaders and organizations
can implement right away,something that?
Can you know that everyday talkor group functioning?
What would?
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I'd say, oh, there's so many, I'll pick, I'll pick
one.
So the book again revolvesaround one of our core tools
called the Kairos circle, andthe word Kairos is a Greek word
that some people are familiarwith, but it's it's the, it's
the one of the Greek words fortime, the word we have for time.
And the other Greek word ischronos, which we're more
(16:30):
familiar with because that'swhere we come up with
chronological and so chronostime in the Greek culture is
really sequential time, it'scalendar time, stopwatch time,
it's linear time.
But the Greeks understood theimportance of identifying that
in our chronos timeline of life,every day, every hour, every
month, every year, a lifetimethat we are constantly
(16:52):
experiencing significant momentsin that chronological timeline
that are important for us toslow down to pay attention to
them.
Why?
Because the experiences of ourlife.
So this is just a little caveat, for, for you know young people
out there that are still in,you know, schooling, um, or
(17:14):
leaders who, once they leftschool, have kind of bought into
this idea that, like, thatseason of my life is over, I've
learned what I need to learn,now it's time to go be a
professional.
And I tell people no, the goalis to be a lifelong learner.
So this Kairos circle, this tool, equips us first and foremost
with the ability to identifythose experiences in our lives
(17:38):
that are absolutely ripe withlearning, with opportunities for
personal growth, development,transformation, with new
insights, with wisdom.
So when people ask me, how do Iincrease my wisdom, my
understanding, my insights, mycapacity as a leader?
(17:58):
And I said you can continue todownload all the latest content
and just shovel that into yourmouth, and that's not bad,
because a lot of good contentout there.
The problem is we don't alwaysknow how to this is not the
right word, but I don't know whyto matriculate or to process or
digest the content and the lifeexperiences we're having.
(18:20):
So what this tool does?
It gives us a simple process toidentify these Kairos moments
in our everyday lives and theability to digest those
experiences or things that we'rereading in a book or hearing on
a podcast so that they actuallybenefit us, that we actually
get the nutrients from thatlearning into our minds and into
(18:43):
our inner persons, so that theyactually help.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, I love that.
I was thinking.
The other day someone asked mewhat is the single most
important thing a leader can do,which is such a big question,
but I boiled it down.
I said self-reflection, andthat's what you're really
getting at, and giving peoplethe tools, because telling
someone to go reflect I meanfrom sending a small child to
(19:11):
timeout to having a manager say,well, maybe we think about that
.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
It's so obscure and abstract, and so thank you for
helping people think throughwhat that actually can look like
and how to do that.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, it's the phrase that I often encourage people
with is we have to learn how tolearn.
Yes, because we've learned in aparticular methodology.
Now, no offense to the academicworld, but we all know that a
lot of our experience, at leastthrough our undergrad and
college, is a lot of informationacquisition and regurgitation.
We're memorizing bits ofinformation so that we can pass
(19:48):
a test and then a lot of thatstuff just goes out the window.
But how do we actually developthe cognitive skill set to learn
from whatever it is that we'reexperiencing?
Because reading a book is notthe same as learning, listening
to a podcast is not the same aslearning, because we can hear a
lot of information, but withoutthe ability to properly digest
(20:10):
that information, extract, likeI said earlier, the nutrients
and leverage that to work for us, then what I find is people
stop learning, we plateau in ourlearning.
And so, like you said,self-awareness that's leadership
101.
We all have to practice.
Then you ask people, how do youpractice self-awareness?
And they're, oh, I don't know.
(20:31):
I said, okay, no problem.
That's why we've developedthese simple tools, this
operating system that equipspeople with practical, very
simple practical handles on howto do these things that matter
so very much yeah that isincredible.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
And now let's think about your first book, and I
haven't had a chance to readthis and I can't wait to read it
, and I just love the title.
So Leadership Gravitas.
So I'm wondering if you couldshare with us your philosophy on
developing gravitas, and why isit so important for leaders to
possess the quality?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So the title Leadership Gravitas was a phrase
that I stumbled upon many, manyyears ago, because gravitas is
not a kind of a common word inmost people's vocabulary.
We have a sense of what it means, but I got it from the imagery
of kind of the laws of physicsthat in planetary orbits it's
(21:31):
the planets of smaller mass thatrevolve around the planets of
larger mass, and that became animage in my mind of gosh.
I want to be the kind of leaderthat other people feel safe,
feel confident, feel encouragedto revolve around, to follow.
(21:51):
In other words, a phrase thatwe often say is we ask the
question are you a leader worthfollowing?
Because a title and a positionin an organization does not
necessarily mean you're a goodleader.
It doesn't mean that peopletrust you, it doesn't mean that
people respect you, it doesn'tmean that people feel empowered
by you.
And so I remember in thoseearly years of my own leadership
struggles which, by the way,they never end.
(22:17):
I'm still struggling in myleadership to get to new levels.
But I remember thinking I wantto be the kind of leader that
other people are thankful for,are grateful for, the kind of
leader that younger or otherleaders aspire to say I want to
be like that person, like Eric,as a leader.
And so I set out on thisadventure to ask the question
what are those qualities, whatare those characteristics that
the leaders in all of history?
So I did a lot of research, alot of study, a lot of reading
(22:39):
to ask the question what arethose qualities?
And not just there are certainqualities in our contemporary
culture that we latch onto andwe would suggest well, if you
don't have these qualities, likeElon Musk, or if you don't have
these qualities like a MarkZuckerberg or, you know, like a
Jeff Bezos, then you can't be anentrepreneur, you can't be an
effective leader.
And what I realized?
(22:59):
That's absolutely not true.
They may have some uniquequalities that I do not have,
but those are not the qualitiesthat determine the effectiveness
of a leader.
And so what I did was justbasically acquire those
characteristics and thosequalities and began to aggregate
them and then eventuallydeveloped what we call the EQ
(23:19):
matrix EQ standing for emotionalintelligence, because that
became kind of a banner orphrase, you know, created by
Daniel Goleman, that I could sayyeah, leaders who operate with
gravitas.
In other words, when the worldis unstable or uncertain around
you, with an ever-changinglandscape, where everything is
(23:41):
always in transition especiallynowadays with technology, things
are changing a mile a minute?
How do we keep up?
What is our ability, undermounting pressure, to continue
to operate as the best versionof ourself?
And I mean the best version ofourself today, because I want to
be a better version tomorrow.
But today, in the midst of allthe pressures and all the
(24:04):
uncertainty and all thechallenges that we're facing as
humans and as leaders, what ismy ability to maintain the best
version of myself?
To maintain the best version ofmyself because that will likely
determine other people'sability, their sense of safety,
(24:26):
security to be able to follow me, to participate, whatever it is
that I'm running after.
And, quite frankly, it was alsoa study of all of the leaders
that I had had up to that pointin my life and realized some of
those leaders I loved forparticular qualities.
There were very few of thoseleaders that I thought I trust
them, I want to follow them, Iwant to participate or be a part
of whatever they're doing.
(24:46):
And so extracting thosecharacteristics and then
attaching them to a simplevisual tool so that any person,
at any age, in any context, canbegin that journey of asking the
questions how do I developthese skills, how do I increase
these qualities?
And what we find in my own lifejourney and with the leaders we
work with is, guess what?
(25:08):
As they focus not on trying toquote unquote be a better leader
, because that can feel like anenigma, but as they focus on
growing and developing thesesimple skills, these simple
qualities, guess what thetestimony of the people around
them is I feel like you're moretrustworthy, I feel like you're
safer to be around, I feel likeI respect you more, I feel like
(25:30):
I'm willing to go with you intodifficult times, I want to
participate in what you're up toand where you're going, and so
that's.
The beautiful thing is thatwe're all wanting to be better
leaders.
We don't know what that means,and I think we need a different
pathway that says hey, let'sfirst and foremost become the
kind of people yes, the qualityof people that other people want
(25:53):
to follow, and that is how wedevelop our leadership.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, yes, the quality of people that other
people want to follow, and thatis how we develop our leadership
.
Yeah, yeah, and exactly, andI'm just thinking too like when
we're focusing on being the bestversion of ourselves, we're
modeling that for those on ourteam, right, and then, like you
said, we have trust, we haverespect, we're more committed,
even when things are reallychallenging, and that's magic.
(26:17):
The amount of time we spend atwork or working is staggering,
and to be able to have someonelike that at the helm is a gift.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Oh gosh, and here's an interesting Leah.
A question that I get askedvery often by leaders is, first
of all, what the heck is culture?
That's one question I get allthe time, because there's a
million books out there andeveryone's talking about the
importance of transforming orcreating a healthy or a
psychologically safe culture, anemotionally intelligent culture
.
That's the first question.
(26:50):
Is it possible for me as aleader even if I don't have the
ultimate authority is itpossible for me to actually have
significant influence and be atransformative agent in this
culture?
Because I think a lot of timespeople are excited to jump into
a new team, a new organization,a new division, a new career,
(27:11):
and they get involved and in thebeginning it's man, optimism
and bright-eyed, bushy, tailed,and we're just going to be
amazing, everyone's amazing.
And then, after you know a fewhours or a few days, it's like
man, this place sucks,everyone's grumpy and frustrated
and people gossiping andtalking behind people's backs.
There's, you know, powerplaying going all over the place
, and so here's, here's the twothings.
The way I define culture issimply this, and it's going to
(27:32):
sound silly, but bear with me.
I define culture as this.
This is how we do it.
This is how we do it.
The prevailing attitudes andbehaviors of the people in any
context will determine theprevailing culture.
Culture is just the kind ofsome expression of the
(27:54):
prevailing attitudes, behaviors,and so what I tell leaders is
that if you want to changeculture, then you have to
understand how bread is made.
Right, because it's as asouthern californian you know we
, we don't we go.
Vegetables grow on the shelvesof the grocery store.
Bread somehow appears in the bagin the grocery store we have no
concept usually how this ismade, and so I remember one day
(28:16):
my wife making homemade bread athome, and the first thing that
surprised me was that there wasonly a few ingredients.
Right, because?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
if you look at a package of bread, it's like 25
ingredients.
It's all preservatives.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
And so she's got the flour and the water and the eggs
and she mixes it all togetherand it turns into this big lump.
And then she goes into therefrigerator and she pulls out
this little bottle and on thebottle it says yeast, and I
think that sounds disgusting.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I've only heard that word, associated with a few
things Babies is okay, I'm notinterested.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And so I said to my wife I said what is that?
And she said oh gosh, I'msurprised you don't know this, I
won't explain it.
She said this gosh, I'msurprised you don't know this, I
won't explain it.
She said this is the yeast,this is leaven.
And having spent a lot of yearsin kind of more of a religious
context, I'd always heard thisparable of Jesus where he
teaches a little leaven leavensthe whole lump.
(29:07):
So she takes this very smalldash of leaven and she puts it
into this very large lump ofdough and then she begins to
knead the leaven in and I thinkthat little bit of leaven isn't
going to make any changes.
And then she sets it aside, shecovers it up, and she comes
back an hour later and thatlittle lump of dough has
(29:29):
expanded.
Right, it has expanded becauseit's created all these air
bubbles within the bread.
It's expanded and is now somuch larger than it was
previously.
And so I tell people I saiddon't underestimate your unique
ability to transform the cultureof your workplace, of your
household, of your friendshipgroup, of whatever context you
(29:51):
find yourself in.
But here's the first order ofbusiness you have to change the
way that you do things.
You have to commit to a set ofattitudes and behaviors that
reflect the kind of culture thatyou want to fight for and then
you have to commit to operatingby those attitudes and behaviors
(30:12):
consistently and you're goingto go against the grain and
you're going to feel like you'reswimming upstream.
But as you continue to do that,guess what?
You will be the leaven that hasa catalytic, transformative
impact on your environment.
Because guess what?
People are drawn to health.
People are drawn to life.
(30:32):
If what's coming out of you ismore life-giving, it's healthier
, it's, it's more effective, itbrings more joy to people's
lives.
If it's more productive, thenpeople will be drawn to it and
we'll begin to ask gosh, whatare you doing different?
And that's what gives people anopportunity then to begin to
say I want to adopt thoseattitudes and behaviors.
(30:55):
And I've seen it happen so manytimes, leah, where one leader
who works with us says myorganization, my team, doesn't
want to go through this coachingprocess.
No problem, you focus on you.
And as they focus on themselvesand they experience
transformation, they become thenew culture and then they're
consistently in that old culture.
It begins to catalyzetransformation.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, yeah, I love all those illustrations.
I'm very visual and that's sohelpful.
And, yeah, letting someone knowyou're going to be the love and
it doesn't take a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
We're going to give you our books, leah, because our
books revolve around visualtools, because I can't remember
anything that's not attached towomen.
Consistent, yes, revolve aroundvisual tools, because I can't
remember anything that's notattached to a window, exactly,
yes, I love that.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So now I'm going to think a kind of big scale, very
broad.
So, across all of your clients,what is the most common
challenge?
And maybe it was culture, maybeit's something else, but what
is it that you hear mostfrequently?
That people are emailing orreaching out to you, and then
you know what is a follow-upstep to addressing that
(31:57):
challenge.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Most leaders when they come to us right, because
very rarely do leaders come tous on the front end of their
career, of their job,responsibility, to say, hey, I
want to get ahead of the eightball and I want to lead as well
as.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Right, because I think we're all every one of us
is operating out of some measureof an imposter syndrome, right,
I think that's normal.
Imposter syndrome, I tellpeople, is just a fancy word for
feeling insecure, okay, and sowe're all feeling a little bit
insecure when we step into anyrole and responsibility, and so
we muster up all of our strengthand all of our leadership tools
and skills and we kind of go atit and eventually what we find
(32:34):
is we run into ongoingfrustrations, we run into
ongoing struggles, difficulties,challenges, dysfunctions, and
what happens for leaders is,over time, their inability to
understand or diagnose theparticular problems that are
happening in their organization.
And right now I'm not talkingabout system structures,
(32:55):
processes, sops that's importanttoo but I'm talking about the
way that those human beings inany team or organization are
interacting together, because Ilike to think that people are
the engine of any business, notthe product, not the service,
not the computer systems, right,I mean, ai is going to take
over some things, but noteverything.
We're still going to needpeople to run stuff, and so
(33:15):
people are the engine, and howpeople operate individually and
collectively determinesoftentimes the effectiveness,
productivity of the organization.
So when the engine of any teamor organization is not
functioning well.
Right, think of the engine whenI'm driving my car.
I'm not a mechanic, I just knowit's in there, it's under the
(33:37):
hood somewhere, it powers myvehicle and helps me get from
point A to point B, and I'mreally grateful for it.
But the most frustrating thingis when there's a light on my
dashboard that comes on and itsays, hey, you're low on oil, or
hey, you need to get somemaintenance.
Or hey, there's tire pressurethat's lower.
Hey, you need to get the enginechecked.
Or hey, you're due for amaintenance.
(33:58):
You know a session, and all Ican say that I'm sure there are
other people who feel this way.
I always feel slightly annoyed,disrupted, inconvenienced,
because I I just think, whycan't that engine just keep
doing its job?
Well, we as individuals and asteams are like that engine.
We need maintenance.
We need, like our operatingsystems, we need continual
(34:20):
upgrades and updates so that wecan continue to operate
effectively, especially witheverything changing in the
landscape of organizations.
We need to continually upgradeand update our ability to face
new challenges and overcomeobstacles.
And so when they're coming tous, it's because usually there's
enough of the lights on thedashboard of their car that are
(34:40):
now blinking at them and saying,hey, you got to pay attention
to what's happening in yourorganization and it's usually in
a place that they're notfamiliar with.
So now that begins, you knowinsecurity, inadequacy sets in.
Leaders start thinking I'mgetting paid to be the leader
and I don't know how totransform the culture here.
I don't know how to deal withthe dysfunction of my team.
(35:02):
I don't know how to deal withall this.
You know all the drama going onand that just continues to
perpetuate this sense of I'minadequate.
If anybody actually finds outthat I don't know how to solve
these problems, maybe that willdisqualify me as a leader.
And sometimes leaders sum upthe courage to say you know what
(35:23):
?
I didn't learn this in school,because that's the truth.
I was never trained or equippedto understand the engine of an
automobile, because that's nottaught in your MBAs nowadays.
And so when they invite us in,it's what we do is we come in
and we basically begin to equipthem with the simple tools so
(35:43):
that they can learn how todiagnose the engine of their
business, the people and howthose people are operating
together, and the simplemaintenance procedures, the
simple solutions, fixes thatwill get that engine running
optimally again, at full power,at full strength, at full
efficiency.
And so that's essentially whatwe do with leaders, teams and
(36:08):
organizations, and the best partis that we want to, you know,
we want to equip them and servethem and empower them until they
can do for themselves what onlywe could do at first, because
we don't want them to depend onus forever.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, that is incredible.
So this next question is alittle bit of a pivot.
And I've been, you know, justin anecdotal conversations.
I've had more people and thisis, you know, at soccer games or
in the grocery store, butsaying, you know, after COVID,
I'm taking a step back.
I don't think I want to becomea leader, I don't want that, the
(36:43):
headache that comes with that.
So I'm wondering, from yourperspective, what can our titled
leaders in organizations do?
How do we continue to supportand empower these employees who
don't have those leadershipaspirations but are still
valuable in maintaining cultureand, you know, fueling that work
group?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, so I'm assuming you're speaking to the people
who are in roles andresponsibilities with a title of
some kind of leadership.
Yeah, yeah, I would say thisthis is probably the simplest
way to say it I think we need asignificant paradigm shift.
That is, I think, happening,like we've got what I call the
(37:24):
prophets of our culture, theSimon Sinek's, the Brene Brown's
, these people that we're alllistening to, going, yes,
something needs to change in theculture of how we operate in
our organization.
I'm dissatisfied, I'm frustrated, I'm unhappy.
I feel like I'm just a cog inthe machine, whatever people are
saying.
But there is a significantamount of displeasure for most
people, for a very highpercentage of people, in their
(37:47):
experience in the workplaceexperience in the workplace and
oftentimes what they end updoing is blaming it on their
particular role andresponsibility, when I think
it's actually has far more to dowith the relational experience
they're having within theworkplace.
That's what I think is wheremost of the stress and headaches
are coming from.
Well, if you look at and youweigh out the amount of time,
(38:10):
energy and resource that mostorganizations give to what I
call the delivery of theorganization Selling, serving,
producing, manufacturing,packaging, whatever it is you
know lawyering, doctoring youknow there's the delivery.
The mission of the organizationis to deliver a particular
product service for people'sconsumption, and I think that's
(38:32):
very important.
And then there's the other sideof the scale, which is
development.
In other words, how do weattend to the time, energy and
resource that we're investinginto the development of the
engine of this organization?
And I would suggest that andthis is probably a very
conservative and generousguesstimation, but it's probably
(38:53):
around 90% of our time, energyand resource, if not more, is
devoted to the delivery side ofour business and maybe 10% is
devoted to the development side.
And the development side thatis happening is largely people
coming in for three hours to doa quick workshop and then that
person's gone and we get a newperson coming in every six
(39:13):
months because, you know, it'sjust like let's get the newest
idea and the newest thing.
And what I find when I interviewthese organizations well, how's
that been going for you?
We've spent hundreds ofthousands of dollars on, you
know, all of these amazingpersonalities and brand people
to come in and inspire andmotivate and and and I think
(39:34):
okay, and how's that working?
Well, we haven't really seenany significant changes.
I'm like well, so basicallythat was a poor ROI and in the
world of business we should knowbetter.
We should look at that ROI andsay that's not delivering to us,
that's not giving us the kindof qualitative experience and
help that we actually reallyneed.
And so, for most organizations,the thought of because I would
(39:56):
say we're more coaches thanconsultants we like to come in
and, over a period of time,partner with leaders, teams,
organizations in a kind ofsignificant process that is
going to equip them with newtools Right, and of course, you
know what does every leader sayto me?
We can't afford to meet everyweek for an hour.
On zoom I can tell you whatafter two or three months of
(40:19):
working with us.
Here's what they start saying Ican't believe we didn't do this
before oh my gosh, we can'tafford not to work with you guys
every week, and that's becausefor the most part, I think that
the ideas that are being kind ofspread in the world of
leadership are fantastic,largely rooted in significant
(40:39):
principles, many repackaged tonew and fresh and titillating
ways.
But I don't know that there area lot of significant
transformative processes thatare being offered in the world
of coaching, at least that I'vebeen exposed to, and part of
that is because it's a lot ofhard work, it takes time, it's
(41:02):
inconvenient and uncomfortableright, because everyone's going
to have to get out of theircomfort zone and learn and grow
and develop and stretch theirleadership muscles.
But for those leaders, teams,organizations that choose that
path, what they discover is, ina very short period of time, the
quality of transformationacross whatever scope we're
(41:24):
working with, is radicallybeneficial.
Like the ROI, the return oninvestment that they experience
is so significant that theyliterally are over the moon, and
that's how we've grown as abusiness is by word of mouth.
And we really haven't neededtime to go market ourselves as a
coaching business because, youknow, one leader says to another
leader my gosh, you know whathappened.
(41:46):
You've experienced all thistransformation.
Your business is operatingbetter, you're.
You no longer seem stressedwhen you come to the golf course
or you know when we're playingbingo or whatever you know it's
like.
Well, we've been working withthis coaching group and it's
literally transformed theatmosphere, the culture, the way
that we operate.
Our business is better, Ourbottom line is better and, quite
frankly, I like my life better,which?
Speaker 1 (42:07):
is really really.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, I mean talk about the best compliment and
not something people not havingto actively try and push and
market and having that plan isvirtually unheard of, so that is
really, really incredible, Eric, I think this will be a nice
segue to this.
I want to ask about a successstory, something that you really
are proud of whether it's anorganization or particular
(42:33):
leader or particular team butwhat kind of stands out as
something that you know you'veseen a lot of change and it just
, you know, brings a smile toyour face?
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Oh, my gosh Leah I have.
I saw that question and mybrain was flooded with so many
amazing stories.
And I say that because in ourcoaching business we were very
disciplined to take time torecognize, acknowledge and
engage the challenges we'refacing with clients right,
because it's hard work.
(43:07):
I call it the grind.
It's a grind, but the successes, the breakthroughs that we get
to see, not only for individualleaders but for teams and for
organizations at large.
So I'll give you, can I giveyou, the three really quick,
short ones.
She had an incredible fitnessorganization that was growing
(43:32):
all over Southern California.
It was booming and she kind ofdialed in the formula right and
she was crushing it.
We started working with her andthen COVID hit, which is an
unexpected I mean significantimpact on her in-person fitness
business.
And so she didn't know what todo, and in working with her, we
did not solve her problem.
(43:53):
We just simply walked with her,equipped her with the tools to
diagnose the problems she wasfacing and to begin to search
out for the creative solutions.
And so she transitioned duringCOVID to an online business,
which required a new skillsetfrom her.
I mean, it was still the samecore business of wanting to give
(44:15):
people a chance to increasetheir fitness in a healthy,
holistic way, but through COVID,just really for a year and a
half, fought, battled, reallymore than anything else, to
overcome her own insecurities,sense of inadequacy.
Can I do this?
Do I have what it takes?
And I just spoke with her a fewweeks ago and her business is
(44:36):
like 50 X.
She never had even consideredthe possibility of what moving
her business into an onlineformat would do for her.
She is reaching more peopleacross a much greater scope of
the world.
She's got clients in almostevery continent.
Now she's just absolutelycrushing it, which is so
encouraging, and she alwayslooks back to that time where
(44:58):
she says Eric, whether it'sCOVID or a downturn in the
market or some impact in ourwhatever, in our getting all of
our products.
You know, gosh, I neverrealized that that challenge,
which I would have thought waswould have killed our business,
(45:21):
was actually an opportunity.
And the second story is a youngman who became, who was named
and became one of the youngestgeneral managers in the NBA and
those who know about NBAbasketball professional
basketball will know who I'mtalking about.
But he was named as one of theyoungest GMs and entered into an
organization that, by allaccounts, was moving in a lot of
(45:43):
different directions and he wastasked with the responsibility,
because, really, inprofessional sports, all anybody
really thinks about is we wantto win a championship, we want
to win a championship.
Who's going to help us do that?
And everybody wants overnightsuccess.
Nobody wants to do the hardwork over a period of time.
And so, working with him tobegin the process of
transforming his front office,the process of creating a
(46:05):
culture where people were morecollaborative, they were no
longer hoarding information,they were no longer siloed, and
that took probably a year to dothat, but sadly, letting,
jettisoning, you know, employeesthat were not interested in
operating in this new culture,bringing in new people, formed
(46:34):
the way that that organizationnow operates, where you know,
from anybody who go in therewould say if you, you know,
spent a day in those offices,you know, two years, three years
ago, and then you went today,you would say this is an
entirely different organization.
And what I loved about him isthat he chose to embrace this
simple idea that we're not hereto win a championship.
We're here to build achampionship caliber program
(46:57):
that has the opportunity topotentially vie for multiple
championships.
Right, and that's the whole ideathat we have to become the
transformation that we want tosee in our teams and our
organization.
He did the hard work that thatorganization has been doing, the
hard work which has been justso fun to watch and so.
And then the third organizationis a distributor of raw
(47:19):
commodities wheat, flowers, allthat stuff.
And I remember when I, when wefirst started working with this
organization it's it's familyowned and run, multiple families
involved a lot of just yourclassic power struggles and
divisions and siloing andfractures in the infrastructure.
But they were wildly successful.
And I tell people all the timejust because you're financially
(47:41):
successful does not mean thatyou are relationally or
culturally successful.
And over time, everyorganization finds out the hard
way that ultimately the culturewill catch up and undermine the
effectiveness of theorganization.
Right, I think it's PeterDrucker who said you know,
culture eats strategy forbreakfast.
It's absolutely true.
And so they got to the pointwhere they were suffering from a
(48:04):
lot of internal dysfunction,and so they brought us in, we
started working with them.
I'll never forget this, thislittle story.
We were teaching them the toolthat is introduced in Leadership
, gravitas how to identify themoments when we're triggered,
our default responses and howthat impacts our environment.
And then what would it looklike if we chose to embrace
(48:26):
different attitudes andbehaviors, what we call the
pathway of personalresponsibility?
And so we're doing, we'releading them through this tool.
We get into a call two weekslater and, before we jump into
any more tool training, I justsay, hey guys, I just want to
hear what's going on In light ofwhat we've been talking about.
Are you experiencing anything,any changes or any challenges?
(48:52):
Was accidentally sent to all ofour vendors with all of our
price margin breakdown in theemail, which would show the
person that they're trying topurchase stuff from how much
we're making on them.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
And so it was a massive disaster.
The fear of breaking trust withthese people.
Are you taking advantage?
I mean, there was so massivedisaster, the fear of breaking
trust with these people.
Are you taking advantage?
I mean, there was so muchtrauma.
And he said, eric, when I had tojump into the meeting with my
executive team to address thisproblem, he said I said, well,
what happened?
He said it was night and daydifference to how we would have
normally.
I said, well, how would youhave normally?
And I said, normally we wouldhave jumped into that room.
(49:30):
We would have immediately beenpointing fingers looking for a
scapegoat.
Who are we going to throw underthe bus?
Who sent that email?
Just fire them right now.
And he said, instead, werealized we're all triggered.
Would it look like if every oneof us took 100% personal
(49:55):
responsibility for thissituation?
And just that shifting of theirparadigm and perspective led to
, he said, an incrediblydifferent type of conversation
where they were able to worktogether, they were able to each
own whatever little part theymight have had in that situation
and they were able to solve theproblem.
(50:15):
And guess what?
We can't always control theexternal factors, but that
leaked email ended up not reallycausing any significant issues,
and the team from that pointforward realized wow, how we
operate individually andtogether really does matter for
how we run this business.
That person who would have beenfired stayed on and has been
(50:39):
wildly successful, and therelational atmosphere I like to
call it the air we're breathingwhen we're in the office, just
radically shifted at that pointand they've just been getting
healthier and healthier eversince.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Yeah, that is incredible to go from finger
pointing to everyone acceptingtheir portion of the blame and
saying, okay, how do wecollaborate, how do we fix this
instead of what did you do?
Excellent, yeah, those arereally incredible stories.
So, eric, two final questionsfor you, and this is is how we
(51:15):
end all episodes of thecommunicative leader.
So you know, a tip advicechallenge.
So for our titled leaders are,you know, our managers,
directors?
And then advice for allemployees, across all ranks.
So what do you want to leaveour listeners with, across all
ranks?
So, what do you want to leaveour listeners with?
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah, for those people who currently have titles
, roles, responsibilities thatyou know would suggest
leadership responsibility Iwould say to them, wherever
you're feeling imposter syndrome, inadequacy, ill-equipped what
I would say to them is youshould.
And it's not your fault.
You were trained for 20 plusyears in an understanding of
(51:54):
business that did not includeperhaps one of the most
important features of business,which is the engine, which is
the people.
And so, instead of beatingyourself up and trying to cover
up whatever you're not sure,quite sure how to do, instead
choose to go on a learningjourney and to equip yourself
with the needed tools, skillsthat will allow you to continue
(52:15):
to raise your game as a leaderand to be a leader worth
following.
For those people who are nottitled, or even for those people
, like you said earlier, whowould kind of think you know, I
don't even know if I want to bea leader, here's what I would
say we're all leaders, becausethe way I define leadership is
influence.
So you have influence in yourhome, in your friendship groups,
(52:37):
and if you're at the golfcourse, if you're at the grocery
store, if you're on the freeway, you have influence over the
other people in the differentlanes, Like as human beings, we
are all walking around every daywith significant opportunities
to lead to influence, to impactpeople.
The question is is ourinfluence and impact an asset or
(52:58):
a liability, in whatevercontext we find ourselves?
That's a really importantquestion to ask ourselves.
Secondly, to choose to own theresponsibility, as a human being
, that you are a leader.
You do have influence andimpact.
Therefore, to go on the journeyof developing your leadership
gravitas, your leadership acumen, your skills, your capacity
(53:20):
Because if it's not just for thebusiness world, it's for your
marriage, it's for your kids,it's for your extended family,
it's for your friendship circles, it's for society, please,
let's all recognize we areleaders.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
Yep, yep.
I could not agree with you moreExactly.
It's like you're in this role,whether you like it or not, so
taking the time, even like atiny step back to think about
what that means in thesedifferent arenas, can really
have some positive outcomes.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
And not to underestimate the power of our
ability, as individuals, totransform, to influence the
context and the cultures that wefind ourselves in Exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Eric, thank you for sharing your time, your
expertise.
This has been such anenergizing conversation.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
For me too.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Oh, thank you, yeah, and thank you for the great work
you're doing.
Really, you know from what I'mdoing in the classroom from this
leadership perspective.
It's so nice to see peopledoing the good work so that
organizations can fit better andfeel better and be more human
centered of my dreams is thatthere would actually be college
(54:31):
courses or graduate coursesoffered.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
in introducing this leadership operating system to
young leaders.
Because I just say it's nevertoo early to start developing
your leadership acumen.
And if we could download thisleadership operating system into
people in their late teens, 20s, even their 30s, before they've
reached higher levels ofleadership roles and
(54:55):
responsibility, I just think wehave an opportunity to see a
vastly different culturallandscape across corporate
America, because I thinkcorporate America quite frankly
needs saving.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Well, that one is transformyour trajectory and then the new
one you're writing Right.
So we're going to keep our eyesout for that one, please do
yeah, thank you, eric.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
Thank you, Leah.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
All right, my friends , that wraps up our conversation
today.
Until next time, communicatewith intention and lead with
purpose.
I'm looking forward to chattingwith you again soon on the
Communicative Leader.
Today on the Communicative Leader, we are
looking at the path toleadership mastery and with us
we have Eric Pfeiffer.
He shares his journey intoleadership coaching and the need
for a leadership operatingsystem.
Eric is the founder and CEO ofMPWR Coaching and his unique
approach focuses on developingagain this leadership operating
(00:22):
system.
So again, more on that.
But it provides a framework forleaders to solve problems,
communicate effectively and makedecisions.
Hello and welcome to theCommunicative Leader hosted by
me, dr Leah O'Neillian-Hodges.
My friends call me Dr O.
I'm a professor ofcommunication and a leadership
(00:44):
communication expert.
I'm the communicative leader.
We're working to make your worklife what you want it to be.
Eric, I'm so thrilled to bechatting with you today and
learning more about you and theamazing work that you do in this
arena.
And before we dive in, can yougive us a little of your
background and kind of how yougot started in leadership
(01:07):
coaching?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Absolutely Well.
Leah Dr O, thank you so muchfor having me on your show.
It's a privilege and a pleasure.
Yeah, so my foray intoleadership coaching.
It probably started, like manyothers, which is in my 20s and
early 30s.
I was just trying to figure outhow to be a leader and, quite
(01:30):
frankly, I don't think I had ahandle on what that meant for me
.
I'd read a lot of books.
Up to that point, I did amaster's that did a lot of focus
on leadership andorganizational leadership.
But what I did know is that Iwanted to be able to take on
greater roles and responsibility, which meant I was going to
have more influence over teamsand over parts of organizations.
(01:55):
And two things kind of collided.
One, my desire to be a goodleader and not quite sure what
that meant or what it shouldlook like.
Aside from, you know, what didmy parents do and what were some
of my professors?
What did they do?
My coaches in sports, how didthey operate?
A few bosses I'd had, up tothat point.
But that collided also withconstant feedback that my
(02:21):
influence in different areas ofengaging other people wasn't
always being received.
Well, surprise, surprise, I wasstepping on people's toes.
I was making decisions inisolation.
I wasn't very collaborative anda lot of that not because I was
intentionally trying to be anineffective leader.
I just didn't really understandthe kind of what I would call a
(02:44):
kind of core skill set of howdo you lead well and what is
leadership.
For't really understand thekind of what I would call a kind
of core skill set of how do youlead well and what is
leadership for and what's thepurpose of it.
So, anyways, that my personaljourney, my personal struggles
over many years, I think, beganto open my eyes, to realize you
know what in my conversationswith friends and coworkers and
people that I had traveled atthat time to work with, were
(03:06):
communicating very similarstruggles and frustrations and
everybody was, you know, pickingup the latest and greatest new
book on leadership, going to aconference.
Back then we didn't have manypodcasts back then.
I'm dating myself but justtrying to gather resources.
But at the end of the day, wewere gathering tons of great
(03:26):
resources but still not quitesure how to bridge the gap
between the theoretical, theprinciples that we were reading
about, and our everyday practiceof leadership.
That created a desire in me tostart asking the question well,
(03:47):
how can I begin to bridge thatgap and how can I help others
maybe pick up on some of the keythings that I've learned in my
own journey of trying andworking and hopefully, some
would suggest becoming a betterleader over the years.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yes, yes, excellent and good on you because I notice
a lot in consulting work.
Yes, excellent and good on youbecause I notice a lot in
consulting work.
People say, well, I step ontoes, I make decisions in
isolation, but that's me andthat's it.
They stop and nope, we don'tneed to stop there and we
shouldn't stop there.
And that's amazing that you'reengaging those conversations and
so open to that self-reflectionand you're sharing it with
(04:23):
others.
I really love that.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I appreciate that and I'll tell you what those exact
phrases did come out of my mouthin those earlier years, because
I think there's a part of usthat wants to justify how we're
operating by virtue of well,this is my personality, right as
soon as we start learning somepersonality assessments and
understanding our wiring.
You know, we're looking reallynot for the rationale for why
our leadership is effective, butwhy we don't have to change,
(04:51):
why we don't have to become moreeffective than we already are.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yes, yes, and I think that's a really nice segue.
So my next question you knoweveryone has their own take on
leadership coaching and I thinkyou've kind of already hinted at
some of this.
But, eric, what is your uniqueapproach to leadership coaching
and interacting with others andhelping them achieve where they
want to be?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Absolutely.
It's a great question.
As a professor, you'll knowthat you have all these young,
bright-eyed, bushy-tailedaspiring leaders.
They want to have influence andimpact on the world around them
.
They want to feel like theirengagement in the workplace is
more than just being a cog in amachine, but they want to feel
like they're having somesignificant impact.
They feel purposeful beyondjust their own little cubicle
(05:40):
and their responsibilities.
And that was very much a partof my journey.
And, like I said earlier, youknow, in reading all of these
amazing books and picking up onall this amazing literature, and
you know the conferences andyou get all these, you're
gathering all of these greatideas.
The way that I like to think ofit is, you know, like on our
smartphones, right, we havethese incredible devices that
(06:02):
allow us to go, for example, tothe Apple App Store, and there's
millions of apps that we candownload, and each of those apps
represents a particular problemwe're facing and a particular
solution, and my experience inreading so much leadership
content was that I was getting alot of great, effective but
(06:26):
very focused apps, and what Iwas missing and I didn't realize
this until years later is thatthe reason these devices are so
powerful is because somebody didthe hard work to develop or
create the operating system,which is the parental program,
as it were.
(06:46):
And now I know some computerscientists are going to you know
they're going to.
They're going to attack mebecause of my lack of knowledge
in this front, but I think thisis pretty accurate, that the
operating system that we don'treally think much about.
We just know that every once ina while there's an automatic
update.
That happens while we'resleeping.
Yes, but it's that parentalprogram that really is
responsible for leveraging,stewarding, resourcing all of
(07:09):
the different applications.
So, to play that analogy out,what I realized is I had a lot
of apps, I was trying to do alot of different things in the
space of leadership, but had nokind of overarching parental
program to help me understandhow do I, when do I, where do I
(07:29):
utilize all of these differentleadership apps that I've picked
up over the years?
And so I've spent probably 13years under a former mentor who
helped me in this process, andthen the last probably 10 years
developing what we call aleadership operating system.
And I'll just describe theunique difference between a
(07:50):
leadership operating system,which you know, I don't know
that we may have one of the onlyones out there, and oftentimes
what we run across is when wedownload a leadership app or
read a great book, right on somesingular idea that really kind
of hits us in a great book,right On some single singular
idea that really kind of hits usin a great spot.
We usually develop a tool or aprinciple that allows us to
(08:11):
solve one or two problems thatare immediate problems in our
lives, where a leadershipoperating system gives us the
unique capacity to solve not oneor two specific problems, but
to diagnose, address and solvemillions and millions of
problems, even ones that we'venot yet been confronted by.
And so what I tell people, Isay from your earliest years,
(08:35):
from your parents, from yourteachers, from your coaches,
from your whatever mentors,bosses, we have actually
developed our own internaloperating system, and the way I
define that is kind of theprevailing attitudes and
behaviors that we carry into anysituation that we're confronted
by.
And some of those, some of thatoperating system is effective
(08:56):
and it helps us achieve greatthings, and some of our
operating system is not sohelpful and it actually creates
more problems.
And so our desire is to giveleaders an operating system that
they, their team or theirorganization can download, which
is comprised by a set of corevisual tools that, if we're all
(09:19):
running the same operatingsystem guess what Now?
Communication, problem solving,decision making, you know all of
those features which I believeare what make leadership and
business so difficult suddenlybecome so much simpler, because
we're all speaking the samelanguage, we're all committed to
(09:40):
operating in a very similar way, regardless of our backgrounds
and our preferences and ourpersonalities, and what we've
discovered is for those teamsand organizations who do the
work to download this operatingsystem.
It radically transforms theirability to solve problems, which
I tell people as often as I can, and for your young listeners
(10:01):
out there, I tell them as oftenas I can.
We think the higher you go inleadership is a bigger paycheck,
which that's often true, butthat it's almost like, well, the
higher we go, the easier itgets, the less problems I'm
going to have to deal with.
I don't.
I'm no longer in the trenches.
And I tell people that is theabsolute opposite of what
happens the higher you go, themore problems you know.
More money, more problems andactually that much more
(10:26):
important that we develop ourcognitive skill set that allows
us to identify, diagnose andsolve high-level problems, and
that's exactly what thisoperating system does.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, I love that illustration.
It's so helpful and, too, as aleadership communication scholar
, I just love that you're givingpeople a lens rather than like,
here is your conflict tool topull out and here's your
listening tool to pull out, ohand you have a coaching tool and
that doesn't really help.
It can help us time to time andwe can patch things together,
(11:03):
but, like you said, when we'reall using the same operating
system, wow, talk about apowerful team.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Absolutely, and again , that's.
The operating system has beendeveloped, tried tested,
recalibrated over and over again, and what I encourage leaders
to think about is you know, theoperating systems on our phones
are constantly updating, right.
So you know, we're no longerusing the same version of the
operating system that we startedwith.
It's continually updating and,as leaders, we need the ability
(11:35):
to continually update our ownleadership or personal operating
system as we continue to facenew challenges and want to grow
and evolve ourselves.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, exactly.
And so with that, I bet some ofwhat you have learned and what
you're doing has come from thesetwo amazing books that you've
written Transform yourTrajectory and Leadership
Gravitas.
So can you give us a little bit, maybe the inspiration that led
to these books and justanything else that you want to
share in regard to this writing?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Absolutely yeah.
So there's a variety of reasonsthat somebody might write a
book, and in my formerorganization, which was also a
coaching business, I wasfortunate enough to be a part of
the team that was in charge ofcontent development and curation
, and so we wrote a bunch ofbooks and I learned a little bit
like, wow, there's a lot ofdifferent reasons to write a
(12:31):
book For myself, for ourcoaching business.
We started the coachingbusiness and we're really
focused on the proof in thepudding.
Is this going to work?
Is this operating system goingto transform leaders, teams,
organizations?
Are people going to be willingto pay?
Uh, which is an important partof business, um, those
entrepreneurs out there.
Somebody needs to want to payfor this.
(12:51):
And once we were a few years inand realized this is actually
working, um, I realized, um, weneed to basically introduce
ourselves, um, to this industryand to the world.
And so the first book,leadership Gravitas, was written
with the purpose of kind oflike to act like a calling card.
(13:11):
You know when we would runacross people.
We're just handing this bookout and saying this is who we
are.
If this conversation soundsinteresting, if the problems
you're personally facingresonate with the problems that
we address in the book, then aconversation may be helpful.
The second purpose is one of myoverarching life missions is to
(13:33):
put these tools from thisoperating system there's eight
core tools into the hands of asmany leaders as humanly possible
, and therefore the book allowsus to disseminate.
You know that that first bookrevolves around, kind of our
first core tool, our DNA tool,which gives us a framework for
(13:53):
the kind of leader we want to beand the kind of culture that we
want to create.
Book was written in the samevein.
We just basically said okay,it's time to put the second core
tool out into the world, togive people access to that, and
so Transform your Trajectoryagain revolves around another
core tool that gives us anopportunity to identify the
(14:18):
opportunities in our lives, inour daily kind of going-ons,
where there's opportunity tolearn, to respond, to experience
personal transformation andcommunal transformation.
And so the hope is we're goingto release each of the core
tools book by book.
But I just recently somebodysaid, hey, eric, you know what,
(14:41):
if the next book you could justrelease a kind of brief
introduction to the entireoperating system, because that,
that, that concept is so uniqueand I thought that's a great
idea.
So the next book that I'vealready started on will a brief
introduction to this leadershipoperating system.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Congratulations.
And what an impressive callingcard.
So most people will hand you abusiness card or maybe a shiny
fact sheet, but like I reallyappreciate the effort and
thought that went into into that, that is really cool.
Well, you, you've written books.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You know it's a labor of love.
Is anybody going to?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
care about really love.
Anybody want to read this.
It's gonna help anybody.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Every sentence I pause and I have a moment a
crisis of confidence.
Yes, so obviously you know it'sa labor of love, but at the
same time, it is still one ofthe key ways that we're able to
share ideas and give people whomay not be able to afford the
high level coaching that weprovide for large organizations
(15:43):
an opportunity to be exposed tothese, the high level coaching
that we provide for largeorganizations an opportunity to
be exposed to these ideas andactually to experience their own
personal transformation.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah.
So let's think more about yourmost recent book, transform your
Trajectory.
Can you share a key insightthat leaders and organizations
can implement right away,something that?
Can you know that everyday talkor group functioning?
What would?
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I'd say, oh, there's so many, I'll pick, I'll pick
one.
So the book again revolvesaround one of our core tools
called the Kairos circle, andthe word Kairos is a Greek word
that some people are familiarwith, but it's it's the, it's
the one of the Greek words fortime, the word we have for time.
And the other Greek word ischronos, which we're more
(16:30):
familiar with because that'swhere we come up with
chronological and so chronostime in the Greek culture is
really sequential time, it'scalendar time, stopwatch time,
it's linear time.
But the Greeks understood theimportance of identifying that
in our chronos timeline of life,every day, every hour, every
month, every year, a lifetimethat we are constantly
(16:52):
experiencing significant momentsin that chronological timeline
that are important for us toslow down to pay attention to
them.
Why?
Because the experiences of ourlife.
So this is just a little caveat, for, for you know young people
out there that are still in,you know, schooling, um, or
(17:14):
leaders who, once they leftschool, have kind of bought into
this idea that, like, thatseason of my life is over, I've
learned what I need to learn,now it's time to go be a
professional.
And I tell people no, the goalis to be a lifelong learner.
So this Kairos circle, this tool, equips us first and foremost
with the ability to identifythose experiences in our lives
(17:38):
that are absolutely ripe withlearning, with opportunities for
personal growth, development,transformation, with new
insights, with wisdom.
So when people ask me, how do Iincrease my wisdom, my
understanding, my insights, mycapacity as a leader?
(17:58):
And I said you can continue todownload all the latest content
and just shovel that into yourmouth, and that's not bad,
because a lot of good contentout there.
The problem is we don't alwaysknow how to this is not the
right word, but I don't know whyto matriculate or to process or
digest the content and the lifeexperiences we're having.
(18:20):
So what this tool does?
It gives us a simple process toidentify these Kairos moments
in our everyday lives and theability to digest those
experiences or things that we'rereading in a book or hearing on
a podcast so that they actuallybenefit us, that we actually
get the nutrients from thatlearning into our minds and into
(18:43):
our inner persons, so that theyactually help.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, I love that.
I was thinking.
The other day someone asked mewhat is the single most
important thing a leader can do,which is such a big question,
but I boiled it down.
I said self-reflection, andthat's what you're really
getting at, and giving peoplethe tools, because telling
someone to go reflect I meanfrom sending a small child to
(19:11):
timeout to having a manager say,well, maybe we think about that
.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
It's so obscure and abstract, and so thank you for
helping people think throughwhat that actually can look like
and how to do that.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, it's the phrase that I often encourage people
with is we have to learn how tolearn.
Yes, because we've learned in aparticular methodology.
Now, no offense to the academicworld, but we all know that a
lot of our experience, at leastthrough our undergrad and
college, is a lot of informationacquisition and regurgitation.
We're memorizing bits ofinformation so that we can pass
(19:48):
a test and then a lot of thatstuff just goes out the window.
But how do we actually developthe cognitive skill set to learn
from whatever it is that we'reexperiencing?
Because reading a book is notthe same as learning, listening
to a podcast is not the same aslearning, because we can hear a
lot of information, but withoutthe ability to properly digest
(20:10):
that information, extract, likeI said earlier, the nutrients
and leverage that to work for us, then what I find is people
stop learning, we plateau in ourlearning.
And so, like you said,self-awareness that's leadership
101.
We all have to practice.
Then you ask people, how do youpractice self-awareness?
And they're, oh, I don't know.
(20:31):
I said, okay, no problem.
That's why we've developedthese simple tools, this
operating system that equipspeople with practical, very
simple practical handles on howto do these things that matter
so very much yeah that isincredible.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
And now let's think about your first book, and I
haven't had a chance to readthis and I can't wait to read it
, and I just love the title.
So Leadership Gravitas.
So I'm wondering if you couldshare with us your philosophy on
developing gravitas, and why isit so important for leaders to
possess the quality?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So the title Leadership Gravitas was a phrase
that I stumbled upon many, manyyears ago, because gravitas is
not a kind of a common word inmost people's vocabulary.
We have a sense of what it means, but I got it from the imagery
of kind of the laws of physicsthat in planetary orbits it's
(21:31):
the planets of smaller mass thatrevolve around the planets of
larger mass, and that became animage in my mind of gosh.
I want to be the kind of leaderthat other people feel safe,
feel confident, feel encouragedto revolve around, to follow.
(21:51):
In other words, a phrase thatwe often say is we ask the
question are you a leader worthfollowing?
Because a title and a positionin an organization does not
necessarily mean you're a goodleader.
It doesn't mean that peopletrust you, it doesn't mean that
people respect you, it doesn'tmean that people feel empowered
by you.
And so I remember in thoseearly years of my own leadership
struggles which, by the way,they never end.
(22:17):
I'm still struggling in myleadership to get to new levels.
But I remember thinking I wantto be the kind of leader that
other people are thankful for,are grateful for, the kind of
leader that younger or otherleaders aspire to say I want to
be like that person, like Eric,as a leader.
And so I set out on thisadventure to ask the question
what are those qualities, whatare those characteristics that
the leaders in all of history?
So I did a lot of research, alot of study, a lot of reading
(22:39):
to ask the question what arethose qualities?
And not just there are certainqualities in our contemporary
culture that we latch onto andwe would suggest well, if you
don't have these qualities, likeElon Musk, or if you don't have
these qualities like a MarkZuckerberg or, you know, like a
Jeff Bezos, then you can't be anentrepreneur, you can't be an
effective leader.
And what I realized?
(22:59):
That's absolutely not true.
They may have some uniquequalities that I do not have,
but those are not the qualitiesthat determine the effectiveness
of a leader.
And so what I did was justbasically acquire those
characteristics and thosequalities and began to aggregate
them and then eventuallydeveloped what we call the EQ
(23:19):
matrix EQ standing for emotionalintelligence, because that
became kind of a banner orphrase, you know, created by
Daniel Goleman, that I could sayyeah, leaders who operate with
gravitas.
In other words, when the worldis unstable or uncertain around
you, with an ever-changinglandscape, where everything is
(23:41):
always in transition especiallynowadays with technology, things
are changing a mile a minute?
How do we keep up?
What is our ability, undermounting pressure, to continue
to operate as the best versionof ourself?
And I mean the best version ofourself today, because I want to
be a better version tomorrow.
But today, in the midst of allthe pressures and all the
(24:04):
uncertainty and all thechallenges that we're facing as
humans and as leaders, what ismy ability to maintain the best
version of myself?
To maintain the best version ofmyself because that will likely
determine other people'sability, their sense of safety,
(24:26):
security to be able to follow me, to participate, whatever it is
that I'm running after.
And, quite frankly, it was alsoa study of all of the leaders
that I had had up to that pointin my life and realized some of
those leaders I loved forparticular qualities.
There were very few of thoseleaders that I thought I trust
them, I want to follow them, Iwant to participate or be a part
of whatever they're doing.
(24:46):
And so extracting thosecharacteristics and then
attaching them to a simplevisual tool so that any person,
at any age, in any context, canbegin that journey of asking the
questions how do I developthese skills, how do I increase
these qualities?
And what we find in my own lifejourney and with the leaders we
work with is, guess what?
(25:08):
As they focus not on trying toquote unquote be a better leader
, because that can feel like anenigma, but as they focus on
growing and developing thesesimple skills, these simple
qualities, guess what thetestimony of the people around
them is I feel like you're moretrustworthy, I feel like you're
safer to be around, I feel likeI respect you more, I feel like
(25:30):
I'm willing to go with you intodifficult times, I want to
participate in what you're up toand where you're going, and so
that's.
The beautiful thing is thatwe're all wanting to be better
leaders.
We don't know what that means,and I think we need a different
pathway that says hey, let'sfirst and foremost become the
kind of people yes, the qualityof people that other people want
(25:53):
to follow, and that is how wedevelop our leadership.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, yes, the quality of people that other
people want to follow, and thatis how we develop our leadership
.
Yeah, yeah, and exactly, andI'm just thinking too like when
we're focusing on being the bestversion of ourselves, we're
modeling that for those on ourteam, right, and then, like you
said, we have trust, we haverespect, we're more committed,
even when things are reallychallenging, and that's magic.
(26:17):
The amount of time we spend atwork or working is staggering,
and to be able to have someonelike that at the helm is a gift.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Oh gosh, and here's an interesting Leah.
A question that I get askedvery often by leaders is, first
of all, what the heck is culture?
That's one question I get allthe time, because there's a
million books out there andeveryone's talking about the
importance of transforming orcreating a healthy or a
psychologically safe culture, anemotionally intelligent culture
.
That's the first question.
(26:50):
Is it possible for me as aleader even if I don't have the
ultimate authority is itpossible for me to actually have
significant influence and be atransformative agent in this
culture?
Because I think a lot of timespeople are excited to jump into
a new team, a new organization,a new division, a new career,
(27:11):
and they get involved and in thebeginning it's man, optimism
and bright-eyed, bushy, tailed,and we're just going to be
amazing, everyone's amazing.
And then, after you know a fewhours or a few days, it's like
man, this place sucks,everyone's grumpy and frustrated
and people gossiping andtalking behind people's backs.
There's, you know, powerplaying going all over the place
, and so here's, here's the twothings.
The way I define culture issimply this, and it's going to
(27:32):
sound silly, but bear with me.
I define culture as this.
This is how we do it.
This is how we do it.
The prevailing attitudes andbehaviors of the people in any
context will determine theprevailing culture.
Culture is just the kind ofsome expression of the
(27:54):
prevailing attitudes, behaviors,and so what I tell leaders is
that if you want to changeculture, then you have to
understand how bread is made.
Right, because it's as asouthern californian you know we
, we don't we go.
Vegetables grow on the shelvesof the grocery store.
Bread somehow appears in the bagin the grocery store we have no
concept usually how this ismade, and so I remember one day
(28:16):
my wife making homemade bread athome, and the first thing that
surprised me was that there wasonly a few ingredients.
Right, because?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
if you look at a package of bread, it's like 25
ingredients.
It's all preservatives.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
And so she's got the flour and the water and the eggs
and she mixes it all togetherand it turns into this big lump.
And then she goes into therefrigerator and she pulls out
this little bottle and on thebottle it says yeast, and I
think that sounds disgusting.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I've only heard that word, associated with a few
things Babies is okay, I'm notinterested.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And so I said to my wife I said what is that?
And she said oh gosh, I'msurprised you don't know this, I
won't explain it.
She said this gosh, I'msurprised you don't know this, I
won't explain it.
She said this is the yeast,this is leaven.
And having spent a lot of yearsin kind of more of a religious
context, I'd always heard thisparable of Jesus where he
teaches a little leaven leavensthe whole lump.
(29:07):
So she takes this very smalldash of leaven and she puts it
into this very large lump ofdough and then she begins to
knead the leaven in and I thinkthat little bit of leaven isn't
going to make any changes.
And then she sets it aside, shecovers it up, and she comes
back an hour later and thatlittle lump of dough has
(29:29):
expanded.
Right, it has expanded becauseit's created all these air
bubbles within the bread.
It's expanded and is now somuch larger than it was
previously.
And so I tell people I saiddon't underestimate your unique
ability to transform the cultureof your workplace, of your
household, of your friendshipgroup, of whatever context you
(29:51):
find yourself in.
But here's the first order ofbusiness you have to change the
way that you do things.
You have to commit to a set ofattitudes and behaviors that
reflect the kind of culture thatyou want to fight for and then
you have to commit to operatingby those attitudes and behaviors
(30:12):
consistently and you're goingto go against the grain and
you're going to feel like you'reswimming upstream.
But as you continue to do that,guess what?
You will be the leaven that hasa catalytic, transformative
impact on your environment.
Because guess what?
People are drawn to health.
People are drawn to life.
(30:32):
If what's coming out of you ismore life-giving, it's healthier
, it's, it's more effective, itbrings more joy to people's
lives.
If it's more productive, thenpeople will be drawn to it and
we'll begin to ask gosh, whatare you doing different?
And that's what gives people anopportunity then to begin to
say I want to adopt thoseattitudes and behaviors.
(30:55):
And I've seen it happen so manytimes, leah, where one leader
who works with us says myorganization, my team, doesn't
want to go through this coachingprocess.
No problem, you focus on you.
And as they focus on themselvesand they experience
transformation, they become thenew culture and then they're
consistently in that old culture.
It begins to catalyzetransformation.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, yeah, I love all those illustrations.
I'm very visual and that's sohelpful.
And, yeah, letting someone knowyou're going to be the love and
it doesn't take a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
We're going to give you our books, leah, because our
books revolve around visualtools, because I can't remember
anything that's not attached towomen.
Consistent, yes, revolve aroundvisual tools, because I can't
remember anything that's notattached to a window, exactly,
yes, I love that.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So now I'm going to think a kind of big scale, very
broad.
So, across all of your clients,what is the most common
challenge?
And maybe it was culture, maybeit's something else, but what
is it that you hear mostfrequently?
That people are emailing orreaching out to you, and then
you know what is a follow-upstep to addressing that
(31:57):
challenge.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Most leaders when they come to us right, because
very rarely do leaders come tous on the front end of their
career, of their job,responsibility, to say, hey, I
want to get ahead of the eightball and I want to lead as well
as.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Right, because I think we're all every one of us
is operating out of some measureof an imposter syndrome, right,
I think that's normal.
Imposter syndrome, I tellpeople, is just a fancy word for
feeling insecure, okay, and sowe're all feeling a little bit
insecure when we step into anyrole and responsibility, and so
we muster up all of our strengthand all of our leadership tools
and skills and we kind of go atit and eventually what we find
(32:34):
is we run into ongoingfrustrations, we run into
ongoing struggles, difficulties,challenges, dysfunctions, and
what happens for leaders is,over time, their inability to
understand or diagnose theparticular problems that are
happening in their organization.
And right now I'm not talkingabout system structures,
(32:55):
processes, sops that's importanttoo but I'm talking about the
way that those human beings inany team or organization are
interacting together, because Ilike to think that people are
the engine of any business, notthe product, not the service,
not the computer systems, right,I mean, ai is going to take
over some things, but noteverything.
We're still going to needpeople to run stuff, and so
(33:15):
people are the engine, and howpeople operate individually and
collectively determinesoftentimes the effectiveness,
productivity of the organization.
So when the engine of any teamor organization is not
functioning well.
Right, think of the engine whenI'm driving my car.
I'm not a mechanic, I just knowit's in there, it's under the
(33:37):
hood somewhere, it powers myvehicle and helps me get from
point A to point B, and I'mreally grateful for it.
But the most frustrating thingis when there's a light on my
dashboard that comes on and itsays, hey, you're low on oil, or
hey, you need to get somemaintenance.
Or hey, there's tire pressurethat's lower.
Hey, you need to get the enginechecked.
Or hey, you're due for amaintenance.
(33:58):
You know a session, and all Ican say that I'm sure there are
other people who feel this way.
I always feel slightly annoyed,disrupted, inconvenienced,
because I I just think, whycan't that engine just keep
doing its job?
Well, we as individuals and asteams are like that engine.
We need maintenance.
We need, like our operatingsystems, we need continual
(34:20):
upgrades and updates so that wecan continue to operate
effectively, especially witheverything changing in the
landscape of organizations.
We need to continually upgradeand update our ability to face
new challenges and overcomeobstacles.
And so when they're coming tous, it's because usually there's
enough of the lights on thedashboard of their car that are
(34:40):
now blinking at them and saying,hey, you got to pay attention
to what's happening in yourorganization and it's usually in
a place that they're notfamiliar with.
So now that begins, you knowinsecurity, inadequacy sets in.
Leaders start thinking I'mgetting paid to be the leader
and I don't know how totransform the culture here.
I don't know how to deal withthe dysfunction of my team.
(35:02):
I don't know how to deal withall this.
You know all the drama going onand that just continues to
perpetuate this sense of I'minadequate.
If anybody actually finds outthat I don't know how to solve
these problems, maybe that willdisqualify me as a leader.
And sometimes leaders sum upthe courage to say you know what
(35:23):
?
I didn't learn this in school,because that's the truth.
I was never trained or equippedto understand the engine of an
automobile, because that's nottaught in your MBAs nowadays.
And so when they invite us in,it's what we do is we come in
and we basically begin to equipthem with the simple tools so
(35:43):
that they can learn how todiagnose the engine of their
business, the people and howthose people are operating
together, and the simplemaintenance procedures, the
simple solutions, fixes thatwill get that engine running
optimally again, at full power,at full strength, at full
efficiency.
And so that's essentially whatwe do with leaders, teams and
(36:08):
organizations, and the best partis that we want to, you know,
we want to equip them and servethem and empower them until they
can do for themselves what onlywe could do at first, because
we don't want them to depend onus forever.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, that is incredible.
So this next question is alittle bit of a pivot.
And I've been, you know, justin anecdotal conversations.
I've had more people and thisis, you know, at soccer games or
in the grocery store, butsaying, you know, after COVID,
I'm taking a step back.
I don't think I want to becomea leader, I don't want that, the
(36:43):
headache that comes with that.
So I'm wondering, from yourperspective, what can our titled
leaders in organizations do?
How do we continue to supportand empower these employees who
don't have those leadershipaspirations but are still
valuable in maintaining cultureand, you know, fueling that work
group?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, so I'm assuming you're speaking to the people
who are in roles andresponsibilities with a title of
some kind of leadership.
Yeah, yeah, I would say thisthis is probably the simplest
way to say it I think we need asignificant paradigm shift.
That is, I think, happening,like we've got what I call the
(37:24):
prophets of our culture, theSimon Sinek's, the Brene Brown's
, these people that we're alllistening to, going, yes,
something needs to change in theculture of how we operate in
our organization.
I'm dissatisfied, I'm frustrated, I'm unhappy.
I feel like I'm just a cog inthe machine, whatever people are
saying.
But there is a significantamount of displeasure for most
people, for a very highpercentage of people, in their
(37:47):
experience in the workplaceexperience in the workplace and
oftentimes what they end updoing is blaming it on their
particular role andresponsibility, when I think
it's actually has far more to dowith the relational experience
they're having within theworkplace.
That's what I think is wheremost of the stress and headaches
are coming from.
Well, if you look at and youweigh out the amount of time,
(38:10):
energy and resource that mostorganizations give to what I
call the delivery of theorganization Selling, serving,
producing, manufacturing,packaging, whatever it is you
know lawyering, doctoring youknow there's the delivery.
The mission of the organizationis to deliver a particular
product service for people'sconsumption, and I think that's
(38:32):
very important.
And then there's the other sideof the scale, which is
development.
In other words, how do weattend to the time, energy and
resource that we're investinginto the development of the
engine of this organization?
And I would suggest that andthis is probably a very
conservative and generousguesstimation, but it's probably
(38:53):
around 90% of our time, energyand resource, if not more, is
devoted to the delivery side ofour business and maybe 10% is
devoted to the development side.
And the development side thatis happening is largely people
coming in for three hours to doa quick workshop and then that
person's gone and we get a newperson coming in every six
(39:13):
months because, you know, it'sjust like let's get the newest
idea and the newest thing.
And what I find when I interviewthese organizations well, how's
that been going for you?
We've spent hundreds ofthousands of dollars on, you
know, all of these amazingpersonalities and brand people
to come in and inspire andmotivate and and and I think
(39:34):
okay, and how's that working?
Well, we haven't really seenany significant changes.
I'm like well, so basicallythat was a poor ROI and in the
world of business we should knowbetter.
We should look at that ROI andsay that's not delivering to us,
that's not giving us the kindof qualitative experience and
help that we actually reallyneed.
And so, for most organizations,the thought of because I would
(39:56):
say we're more coaches thanconsultants we like to come in
and, over a period of time,partner with leaders, teams,
organizations in a kind ofsignificant process that is
going to equip them with newtools Right, and of course, you
know what does every leader sayto me?
We can't afford to meet everyweek for an hour.
On zoom I can tell you whatafter two or three months of
(40:19):
working with us.
Here's what they start saying Ican't believe we didn't do this
before oh my gosh, we can'tafford not to work with you guys
every week, and that's becausefor the most part, I think that
the ideas that are being kind ofspread in the world of
leadership are fantastic,largely rooted in significant
(40:39):
principles, many repackaged tonew and fresh and titillating
ways.
But I don't know that there area lot of significant
transformative processes thatare being offered in the world
of coaching, at least that I'vebeen exposed to, and part of
that is because it's a lot ofhard work, it takes time, it's
(41:02):
inconvenient and uncomfortableright, because everyone's going
to have to get out of theircomfort zone and learn and grow
and develop and stretch theirleadership muscles.
But for those leaders, teams,organizations that choose that
path, what they discover is, ina very short period of time, the
quality of transformationacross whatever scope we're
(41:24):
working with, is radicallybeneficial.
Like the ROI, the return oninvestment that they experience
is so significant that theyliterally are over the moon, and
that's how we've grown as abusiness is by word of mouth.
And we really haven't neededtime to go market ourselves as a
coaching business because, youknow, one leader says to another
leader my gosh, you know whathappened.
(41:46):
You've experienced all thistransformation.
Your business is operatingbetter, you're.
You no longer seem stressedwhen you come to the golf course
or you know when we're playingbingo or whatever you know it's
like.
Well, we've been working withthis coaching group and it's
literally transformed theatmosphere, the culture, the way
that we operate.
Our business is better, Ourbottom line is better and, quite
frankly, I like my life better,which?
Speaker 1 (42:07):
is really really.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, I mean talk about the best compliment and
not something people not havingto actively try and push and
market and having that plan isvirtually unheard of, so that is
really, really incredible, Eric, I think this will be a nice
segue to this.
I want to ask about a successstory, something that you really
are proud of whether it's anorganization or particular
(42:33):
leader or particular team butwhat kind of stands out as
something that you know you'veseen a lot of change and it just
, you know, brings a smile toyour face?
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Oh, my gosh Leah I have.
I saw that question and mybrain was flooded with so many
amazing stories.
And I say that because in ourcoaching business we were very
disciplined to take time torecognize, acknowledge and
engage the challenges we'refacing with clients right,
because it's hard work.
(43:07):
I call it the grind.
It's a grind, but the successes, the breakthroughs that we get
to see, not only for individualleaders but for teams and for
organizations at large.
So I'll give you, can I giveyou, the three really quick,
short ones.
She had an incredible fitnessorganization that was growing
(43:32):
all over Southern California.
It was booming and she kind ofdialed in the formula right and
she was crushing it.
We started working with her andthen COVID hit, which is an
unexpected I mean significantimpact on her in-person fitness
business.
And so she didn't know what todo, and in working with her, we
did not solve her problem.
(43:53):
We just simply walked with her,equipped her with the tools to
diagnose the problems she wasfacing and to begin to search
out for the creative solutions.
And so she transitioned duringCOVID to an online business,
which required a new skillsetfrom her.
I mean, it was still the samecore business of wanting to give
(44:15):
people a chance to increasetheir fitness in a healthy,
holistic way, but through COVID,just really for a year and a
half, fought, battled, reallymore than anything else, to
overcome her own insecurities,sense of inadequacy.
Can I do this?
Do I have what it takes?
And I just spoke with her a fewweeks ago and her business is
(44:36):
like 50 X.
She never had even consideredthe possibility of what moving
her business into an onlineformat would do for her.
She is reaching more peopleacross a much greater scope of
the world.
She's got clients in almostevery continent.
Now she's just absolutelycrushing it, which is so
encouraging, and she alwayslooks back to that time where
(44:58):
she says Eric, whether it'sCOVID or a downturn in the
market or some impact in ourwhatever, in our getting all of
our products.
You know, gosh, I neverrealized that that challenge,
which I would have thought waswould have killed our business,
(45:21):
was actually an opportunity.
And the second story is a youngman who became, who was named
and became one of the youngestgeneral managers in the NBA and
those who know about NBAbasketball professional
basketball will know who I'mtalking about.
But he was named as one of theyoungest GMs and entered into an
organization that, by allaccounts, was moving in a lot of
(45:43):
different directions and he wastasked with the responsibility,
because, really, inprofessional sports, all anybody
really thinks about is we wantto win a championship, we want
to win a championship.
Who's going to help us do that?
And everybody wants overnightsuccess.
Nobody wants to do the hardwork over a period of time.
And so, working with him tobegin the process of
transforming his front office,the process of creating a
(46:05):
culture where people were morecollaborative, they were no
longer hoarding information,they were no longer siloed, and
that took probably a year to dothat, but sadly, letting,
jettisoning, you know, employeesthat were not interested in
operating in this new culture,bringing in new people, formed
(46:34):
the way that that organizationnow operates, where you know,
from anybody who go in therewould say if you, you know,
spent a day in those offices,you know, two years, three years
ago, and then you went today,you would say this is an
entirely different organization.
And what I loved about him isthat he chose to embrace this
simple idea that we're not hereto win a championship.
We're here to build achampionship caliber program
(46:57):
that has the opportunity topotentially vie for multiple
championships.
Right, and that's the whole ideathat we have to become the
transformation that we want tosee in our teams and our
organization.
He did the hard work that thatorganization has been doing, the
hard work which has been justso fun to watch and so.
And then the third organizationis a distributor of raw
(47:19):
commodities wheat, flowers, allthat stuff.
And I remember when I, when wefirst started working with this
organization it's it's familyowned and run, multiple families
involved a lot of just yourclassic power struggles and
divisions and siloing andfractures in the infrastructure.
But they were wildly successful.
And I tell people all the timejust because you're financially
(47:41):
successful does not mean thatyou are relationally or
culturally successful.
And over time, everyorganization finds out the hard
way that ultimately the culturewill catch up and undermine the
effectiveness of theorganization.
Right, I think it's PeterDrucker who said you know,
culture eats strategy forbreakfast.
It's absolutely true.
And so they got to the pointwhere they were suffering from a
(48:04):
lot of internal dysfunction,and so they brought us in, we
started working with them.
I'll never forget this, thislittle story.
We were teaching them the toolthat is introduced in Leadership
, gravitas how to identify themoments when we're triggered,
our default responses and howthat impacts our environment.
And then what would it looklike if we chose to embrace
(48:26):
different attitudes andbehaviors, what we call the
pathway of personalresponsibility?
And so we're doing, we'releading them through this tool.
We get into a call two weekslater and, before we jump into
any more tool training, I justsay, hey guys, I just want to
hear what's going on In light ofwhat we've been talking about.
Are you experiencing anything,any changes or any challenges?
(48:52):
Was accidentally sent to all ofour vendors with all of our
price margin breakdown in theemail, which would show the
person that they're trying topurchase stuff from how much
we're making on them.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
And so it was a massive disaster.
The fear of breaking trust withthese people.
Are you taking advantage?
I mean, there was so massivedisaster, the fear of breaking
trust with these people.
Are you taking advantage?
I mean, there was so muchtrauma.
And he said, eric, when I had tojump into the meeting with my
executive team to address thisproblem, he said I said, well,
what happened?
He said it was night and daydifference to how we would have
normally.
I said, well, how would youhave normally?
And I said, normally we wouldhave jumped into that room.
(49:30):
We would have immediately beenpointing fingers looking for a
scapegoat.
Who are we going to throw underthe bus?
Who sent that email?
Just fire them right now.
And he said, instead, werealized we're all triggered.
Would it look like if every oneof us took 100% personal
(49:55):
responsibility for thissituation?
And just that shifting of theirparadigm and perspective led to
, he said, an incrediblydifferent type of conversation
where they were able to worktogether, they were able to each
own whatever little part theymight have had in that situation
and they were able to solve theproblem.
(50:15):
And guess what?
We can't always control theexternal factors, but that
leaked email ended up not reallycausing any significant issues,
and the team from that pointforward realized wow, how we
operate individually andtogether really does matter for
how we run this business.
That person who would have beenfired stayed on and has been
(50:39):
wildly successful, and therelational atmosphere I like to
call it the air we're breathingwhen we're in the office, just
radically shifted at that pointand they've just been getting
healthier and healthier eversince.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Yeah, that is incredible to go from finger
pointing to everyone acceptingtheir portion of the blame and
saying, okay, how do wecollaborate, how do we fix this
instead of what did you do?
Excellent, yeah, those arereally incredible stories.
So, eric, two final questionsfor you, and this is is how we
(51:15):
end all episodes of thecommunicative leader.
So you know, a tip advicechallenge.
So for our titled leaders are,you know, our managers,
directors?
And then advice for allemployees, across all ranks.
So what do you want to leaveour listeners with, across all
ranks?
So, what do you want to leaveour listeners with?
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah, for those people who currently have titles
, roles, responsibilities thatyou know would suggest
leadership responsibility Iwould say to them, wherever
you're feeling imposter syndrome, inadequacy, ill-equipped what
I would say to them is youshould.
And it's not your fault.
You were trained for 20 plusyears in an understanding of
(51:54):
business that did not includeperhaps one of the most
important features of business,which is the engine, which is
the people.
And so, instead of beatingyourself up and trying to cover
up whatever you're not sure,quite sure how to do, instead
choose to go on a learningjourney and to equip yourself
with the needed tools, skillsthat will allow you to continue
(52:15):
to raise your game as a leaderand to be a leader worth
following.
For those people who are nottitled, or even for those people
, like you said earlier, whowould kind of think you know, I
don't even know if I want to bea leader, here's what I would
say we're all leaders, becausethe way I define leadership is
influence.
So you have influence in yourhome, in your friendship groups,
(52:37):
and if you're at the golfcourse, if you're at the grocery
store, if you're on the freeway, you have influence over the
other people in the differentlanes, Like as human beings, we
are all walking around every daywith significant opportunities
to lead to influence, to impactpeople.
The question is is ourinfluence and impact an asset or
(52:58):
a liability, in whatevercontext we find ourselves?
That's a really importantquestion to ask ourselves.
Secondly, to choose to own theresponsibility, as a human being
, that you are a leader.
You do have influence andimpact.
Therefore, to go on the journeyof developing your leadership
gravitas, your leadership acumen, your skills, your capacity
(53:20):
Because if it's not just for thebusiness world, it's for your
marriage, it's for your kids,it's for your extended family,
it's for your friendship circles, it's for society, please,
let's all recognize we areleaders.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
Yep, yep.
I could not agree with you moreExactly.
It's like you're in this role,whether you like it or not, so
taking the time, even like atiny step back to think about
what that means in thesedifferent arenas, can really
have some positive outcomes.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
And not to underestimate the power of our
ability, as individuals, totransform, to influence the
context and the cultures that wefind ourselves in Exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Eric, thank you for sharing your time, your
expertise.
This has been such anenergizing conversation.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
For me too.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Oh, thank you, yeah, and thank you for the great work
you're doing.
Really, you know from what I'mdoing in the classroom from this
leadership perspective.
It's so nice to see peopledoing the good work so that
organizations can fit better andfeel better and be more human
centered of my dreams is thatthere would actually be college
(54:31):
courses or graduate coursesoffered.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
in introducing this leadership operating system to
young leaders.
Because I just say it's nevertoo early to start developing
your leadership acumen.
And if we could download thisleadership operating system into
people in their late teens, 20s, even their 30s, before they've
reached higher levels ofleadership roles and
(54:55):
responsibility, I just think wehave an opportunity to see a
vastly different culturallandscape across corporate
America, because I thinkcorporate America quite frankly
needs saving.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Well, that one is transformyour trajectory and then the new
one you're writing Right.
So we're going to keep our eyesout for that one, please do
yeah, thank you, eric.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
Thank you, Leah.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
All right, my friends , that wraps up our conversation
today.
Until next time, communicatewith intention and lead with
purpose.
I'm looking forward to chattingwith you again soon on the
Communicative Leader.
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