September 15, 2023 • 49 mins
What does it mean to create healthier, equitable workplaces? How does behavioral science play a key role in this transformation? Join us as we welcome the insightful Portia James to answer these questions. Portia, a prominent leader in the field of behavior analysis, shares her experiences and passion for constructing fair workforces where people feel valued. She sheds light on the rapidly evolving industry, underlining the escalating demands and complexities of leadership.
Embark with us on Portia's personal odyssey as she navigates the challenges of leading in a domain that often prioritizes corporate power, money, and titles over human-centric approaches. Journey with us through the intricate world of entrepreneurship and leadership, where Portia emphasizes on the necessity for decision-making prowess and perspective-taking. We delve into the science of behavior analysis as the very DNA of leadership, stressing on the alignment of values and behaviors. As leaders, we must ensure accountability and resist the temptation to get overly absorbed in daily business trivialities.
In our concluding act, Portia and I focus on the essential subject of feedback and perspective in leadership. We scrutinize the dangerous notion of 'selling your soul' and how it cannibalizes a person's essence over time. Portia highlights the essence of humility in leadership and the need for feedback, both from industry veterans and team members within our organization. We wrap up with Portia sharing her insights on using social media effectively for communication and fostering engaging conversations. Tune in for an enlightening discussion on the significance of vision, integrity, and humility in leadership.
Pick up a copy of the #1 bestseller: Adaptive Intelligence: The Evolution of Emotional Intelligence Through the Proven Power of Behavior Science
The Behavioral Toolbox equips those charged with supporting behavior change in schools with practical applications of the science of human behavior for making a positive difference in the workplace. In this case, the classroom and school!
Be sure to subscribe to Dr. Paulie's Heart & Science YouTube channel for a variety of content related to behavior science and bringing out the best in yourself and others.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the thoughts and rants of a behavior
scientist show Hosted by WallStreet.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Journal in USA Today.
Best-selling author Dr Pauley.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
All right, welcome Portia James to the podcast.
I gotta tell the listeners herethat my good friend dr Nick
Green was at a conference, Ithink it was the.
Was it the Weba conference,portia?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It was yeah we've been asked this year.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, and I get a message from him.
He goes oh my god, you got tomeet this woman, portia James.
I gotta connect you guys.
You're so Like-minded and youknow you probably should have
her on the podcast.
So I'm like, all right, itsounds good.
He's like, no, no, no, I'mserious, you got to have her on
man.
I'm like, okay, brother, let metake a look and go.
And so I looked at her, some ofher background.
I'm like, oh, cool man, we'relike we're living in some of the
(00:47):
same areas, if we seem like wehave some of the same passions.
Of course she's a baby analyst,she, she, you know, she focuses
on organizational behaviormanagement and she also, you
know, has a passion for creatingHealthy workforces, people
where people feel valued andit's equitable.
And so when I heard that, Ithought you know, this is a,
(01:11):
this is somebody want to talk toyou, because I would love to
hear about your experiences andI would love to talk about how
we can leverage the signs ofhuman behavior for creating a
better workplace.
I have a dream that one day soI Didn't mean to say that, or
I'm not trying to be Martin, butthat one day, you know, there's
the work will be a place wherepeople want to go, where they
(01:31):
feel valued and care for allthese places, and I Do.
You believe in our field, or anyfield, if you're gonna, if
you're gonna give this consumerswhat you need.
In our field there's a lot ofconsumers who, you know, have
disabilities.
Well, can't bring out the bestin them if you don't bring out
the folks, the best in the folksin the workplace.
And Too many people are justlooking at the bottom line, the
result they're trying to produce, and not thinking about the
(01:52):
people and their behaviorrequired to produce it.
So anyways, portia James,welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
I'm excited to be here and tokind of just chop it up with you
about, about this topic.
That's really become very much.
You know my life's work, youknow, yeah, creating workspaces
that people don't have torecover from.
I think that's like the biggestthing, especially, you know,
(02:20):
being a black woman and comingup in this industry.
I've been in for 17 years now.
Gosh, the time flew.
So many things about thisindustry have changed since I
got into the industry, in termsof not just the workplace but
the field at large.
So much has changed.
I know it was the autism ratewas one in 166 when I got into
(02:45):
the field and someone gave meone in 33 yesterday and I was
like again so, yeah, there'sjust been although we're not
sure if that's you know.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
They were just, you know, diagnosing more.
Yeah, I think so.
I think with education.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, you know people being educated parents being a
little bit more in a position toadvocate for themselves and for
their kids, and you know Makingsure that they're able to, to
give you information that theyneed in order to get the
diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, but either way, it's still like man needs to be
addressed.
Thank goodness that we havescience, even behavior, although
we don't have enough people goaround to support all the needs
and people don't understand whatwe bring to the table and
there's some misnomers about it.
But thank goodness for thescience.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, yeah, I think that that's definitely.
You know, that is the issue,right is that we there's this
demand now that has increasedyear over year that we're just,
I think, as Business leaders,trying to meet the demand and
we're feeling the strain of thatmore now than I think we ever
have is it is true.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, let's talk.
Talk a little bit about whenyou actually wrote this.
Now, if you see me moving hertyping, I'm just making little
notes right.
When you said recovering fromthe workplace oh my god, did
that that resonate with me?
Because I, I don't know, I justkeep putting my foot in it.
It seems like too often, notanymore.
I'm in a great spot, love, whereI want to be, but I I just what
(04:12):
I found is that there seems tobe More bad leaders than good
leaders, and I don't want to saybad, I should say you know
leaders with bad behavior,because it doesn't mean that
they're bad people.
Oftentimes it's a skill deficit,but I do find that there's
seems like a higher percentageof those that we might drop into
(04:32):
a Classification ofnarcissistic.
Narcissistic leaders and thatare like brutal, they want to
control all the reinforcers, man, they I don't know there might
be signs of damage.
So I see this kind of stuffhappening.
But I still have like dreams of, you know, some of my past
experiences and although a lotof them weren't necessarily
directed at me, it was, I didn't.
(04:52):
I always feel, I still feelthis tremendous sense of guilt
where I saw people not beingtreated in a way that I valued
and I didn't stick up for themor I didn't try to do something
differently for fear of my ownjob or fear of you know Whatever
consequences I might experience, and I hate that I allowed that
to happen.
I got to the point where I'mlike never gonna let it happen
(05:15):
again.
Wow the points where I'veconfronted Leaders, you know,
face-to-face, and probably saidsome things I shouldn't have
said, because you probablyshouldn't speak to people that
way, but I was just angry Aboutit because I saw it so happen
and I'm a fighter.
You know, I'm a fighter andlike I'm never gonna hit anybody
, do anything.
But in my mind I'm like, oh,I'm so angry for that happening
(05:35):
and I don't think it's a goodidea to do coercion with
coercion.
But man, I'm human, you know,correct, but what kind of things
have you seen?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
It's so interesting, you know, like being in the
field, working in the field asbehavior analyst and just not
having the access to be able toreally see what happens in the
corporate role, like at theC-suite at that higher level,
you know, departmental director,you know, where I'm able to
kind of get a glimpse, andpretty early on into my my kind
of corporate role, and I wasable to see, really
(06:05):
interestingly, how, like thecontingencies and the variables
that people are working, thepressure that people at that
level are operating under, aretotally different, like the
things that are driving theirbehavior are very, very
different than what drives ourbehavior Right like we are.
We get into the field because wecare, you know and we or we
enjoy the work, we genuinelyenjoy the work or we have these
(06:27):
dreams or these goals.
You know for me personally Igot into the industry and I went
to school.
I did my undergraduate work andI thought that I would go into
marriage and family therapy.
So I was actually looking intoan MFT program.
When I graduated college and Itook an internship the last one
that was available,procrastinated, it took the last
one that was available ended upin autism.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Oh my god, hold on pause.
There we are, so much alike.
I started to go in there.
I'm a therapist, I was a socialworker, I went to that field
and I ended up working inresidential treatment facilities
with sex offenders because IProcrastinated.
But I think the greatestexperience ever had and it's
also where I was exposed to somebehavior analysis etc.
But go ahead.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, I just was like , oh shoot, you know, I got a
graduate on time and and so Ihad to choose autism.
I had never met a kid, you know, who had autism.
I was extremely unfamiliar.
I said I would never go intospecial education.
I actually didn't want to workwith kids, I wanted to work with
adolescents and families on thefamily therapy side, and so, so
(07:24):
you know, I got into theindustry because I just I fell
in love.
I fell in love with a littleboy who struggled and, and more
so than that, I fell in lovewith the story of his family
going back to marriage andfamily therapy and the things
that they were dealing with Likein their marriage.
You know, at the time thedivorce rate in the States was
toward 50%, but for kids,specifically with autism, I had
(07:45):
learned that it was like in the80s.
You know and so I like this isthe bet.
This is the greatest vantagepoint to help families is from
inside of their homes.
You know, helping navigate thisspace of having a child that
they just don't understand, youknow, and they just can't come
to to agreement on, and so so,yeah, I got into it for the love
of like families and buildingfamilies and seeing families
Thrive and get back on the samepage with each other, and that's
(08:06):
what I did for, you know, 14years working in the field until
I became a clinical director.
And then, once I left thatclinical director role, I
realized, oh shoot, there's awhole world of things that our
leaders at the top Are concernedabout and they, they truly have
very little to do with families, with the contingencies that
drive us, the ones that are inthe field, and so there's
(08:28):
definitely a disconnect there,and I think it's for that reason
.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
There is man, it looks a lot.
I've been up in those suitesand it's a lot different and
they're so far removed from thatend result in the frontline
Worker, with that rbt's doingand the impact that they're
having and they're not able toalign their behaviors with that.
And it is.
And I've seen people again,unfortunately, like.
(08:53):
This is my humble opinion, Idon't have any research behind
this, but I feel that the bestleaders don't want to be leaders
because the responsibility isso great that you have, you know
, because you really care aboutpeople, you realize that every
decision that you make has thisripple effect across your
organization.
It is a large responsibility.
(09:14):
And then you have some peoplewho just want the positional
authority, they want thepositional power, they want the
title, they want the money.
And I'm not saying that all thatisn't great, of course.
You know what I mean.
We all want to feel good andattention is a very powerful,
most powerful reinforce in theworld.
So I'm not acting whole as now.
I don't want to do that.
You know, my titles have helpedme, certainly, and money helps
for sure.
(09:34):
But I feel that in the absenceof that value of caring about
people and putting people first,you know, and those reinforcers
, kind of taking over theattention, you know, the money
etc.
It becomes very dangerous andthey become, their behaviors
become very dangerous to people.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, 100%.
I think.
You know I I've definitely seenthe shift.
You know I had a boss that kindof similarly to you that I
would try to get him to to see.
You know how you said I justthere were things that I didn't
speak up for that I saw that Ijust I probably should have said
something.
I wonder about him often,actually, because I'm like I
wonder if he ever thinks aboutthe things that if it keeps him
(10:14):
up at night because it shouldlike if he's a good person, then
then it should.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
That's the question right.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, like it keeps me up at night, wondering if it
keeps you up at night.
You know, and so I do, though Iwonder often, like the decisions
that he had to make, and Iwould feel the same way, like
you know will I ever get to aposition where, where he is,
where he struggled with makingdecisions that were client and
(10:41):
people centered, because of whatwas on the line you know, his
job being on the line and whatwas expected, the responsibility
of a role of that magnitude?
And when I left that place, Ijust said I will never be in
that position.
I will leave this industrybefore I get myself to a place
where I would have to trade myintegrity, my beliefs and you
know what I've done, what I'vecreated as my life's work where
(11:04):
I have to trade that, myhumanity, you know, for whatever
these other contingencies areand I don't believe that it was
just money.
But there is this like driveright for, like more power or
even climbing the ladder, higherpositions, that you know, being
able to have your ownprofessional growth and
understanding that, well, thismust just come with the
territory I'm going to have to,you know, go away from what I
(11:25):
got, my reason for getting intothis and I'm going to have to
start to chase these other norms, and it must be a really
difficult.
I've always wondered where thatturning point is for people.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I well, I've been there and I've left a few jobs
and taken like pretty dramaticpay cuts.
You know, one time I was athird of my salary.
Who can just lose a third oftheir salary, you know, end up,
you know, getting it.
But I just couldn't do it.
You know, like just waking upand feeling like this is not
(11:57):
right, this is not me, it's notokay.
You know, even though I'm notsaying anything, it's like tacit
compliance and did not feelgood about that stuff.
And I didn't leave withoutfirst trying to shape the
behavior right, trying to askthe good questions and find out
what the values are and makethose connections.
But you know there's only somuch you can do without those
(12:18):
contingencies in place.
I do want to say this, though,that in sometimes, you know
again, most of the time I thinkit's good people just engaging
in some bad behavior rightmaking, not seeing, you know,
being well intended.
But it's not about intent.
At the end of the day, it'sabout impact and being poor
observers of their behavior.
Poor observers of the impact oftheir behavior on the
(12:38):
environment and poor observersof the impact of the environment
on their behavior.
But it's easy to be down, likeon the ground level, for example
, the front line, and judge theleader up there because you
don't understand thosecontingencies right.
It's very, very difficult to runan organization right, to run
an organization but to even bean entrepreneur.
(12:59):
I have a lot of respect forthese folks, man.
They dedicate their life, andsometimes too much of the life,
to it because you, you know, thebuck starts and ends with you.
So the stress that comes withit and I have my own side
business right now that I'mbuilding up, but I'm doing it at
my own pace and it's going well.
I haven't experienced some ofthe stress of people who invest
a lot of money into theorganization to get up and
(13:22):
running.
I've done a lot of sweat equityand that comes with.
I mean, you know it's like I'mlife or death, you know I don't
mean physically, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but to their career.
So there's a lot of stress upthere, so I don't want to come
across as, like again, holierthan now.
There are stressors that youcan't imagine if you've been in
that position having to navigateall the stuff that comes with
(13:42):
owning a business.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, I think you know, one thing I learned about
in entrepreneurship that Ididn't really fully, ever grasp
was that it something that thiscould be daily, weekly, monthly.
But there are these verydistinct forks in the road.
You know, once you've investedthe time and the money and the
energy and the heart, really,you know, more so than anything,
(14:04):
it's your compassion for whatyou do, your reason why you
started.
There are these like forks inthe road.
You know that that we come toas leaders and as business
owners where you do have to makedecisions that are life or
death for the company.
You know, and it's a, it's apressure that truly I wouldn't
(14:24):
wish on anyone.
People have asked me, like youknow would you, would you ever
start another company?
Like you know, would you ever go?
And you know, and it's hard forme to envision ever starting
another company where I haveemployees, because as soon as
you have employees, those forksin the road come a lot more
frequently.
And unfortunately, what happensin our industry and for
(14:45):
industry?
Leaders are right.
You know, leaders get judged,you know, from the frontline,
and the truth of the matter is,in this field at least, there is
really no training for leaders,especially for clinician owned
companies.
Bcba is our out.
Our value is in the field.
You know we're expected to bein the field working with
clients, and so we're not reallytaught to be effective leaders.
(15:06):
I don't think in all of my yearsof training, professional
development, I would have to domy continuing education units
and leadership and read booksabout leadership in order to try
to hone my skills and watch theleaders around me and mostly
decide the ones that, like I wasgoing to vow never to be, like
more.
So you know, like, oh, don'tever.
Let me get to the point.
(15:27):
I'm a very, I'm an excellentperson, I'm great at perspective
taking.
So I've always had aperspective of like, what
variables and what contingenciesare going on for that person
that they were put in a positionto have to come to that fork in
the road and go left, maybewhen I would have gone right,
you know, and thinking about,what is it that those people are
up against, where they feellike their backs are up against
(15:48):
the wall?
And that's really where youcome to know, like the nature of
a person, how a person willmake decisions is when their
back is up against the wall.
And I think for a lot of ourleaders, our backs are up
against the wall and we justdon't have the training or the
support to be able to, you know,be as effective in our
leadership as we want to be.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
You said so many important things that so closely
aligned my personal values.
A couple things that I want tomention.
I tried to get as many notes asI could while you're talking.
I didn't want to hear you,right.
So I like when you talk aboutperspective taking.
I think that is a criticalleadership behavior, but I think
that you have to value theperspective of others first,
(16:30):
right.
And again, I think that peoplemost leaders are just not you
know, they just don't knowbetter, right, there's a skill
deficit.
So I think that is criticalbecause you got to think about
what it would feel like to be onthe other end of this and how
they are experiencing this.
Because that comes back to theintentional search for the
impact of your behavior.
You can't just look for otherleaders and try to be that way,
(16:50):
right?
I like because you have seenthis in sports, where they come
out and they're hard on the teamand they're yelling at them and
people are saying that's theway you got to be a good leader,
but they're not seeing all theother stuff.
Like you know, they're showingup at the family dinners or the
talks that they're havingprivately, right, and so that
becomes like really important.
But I like what you pointed outand saying.
You know what?
(17:11):
There's some leaders' behaviorthat I don't want to engage in,
right, this bad behavior.
So I agree with that.
I got my doctorate inorganizational leadership and
here's what it did, right, itpopped when I went back to for
my doctorate.
It started to pop me out of thematrix.
I stopped suffering from what Icall behavior in myopia and I
suffer from sometimes we all domeaning that when we, when we
(17:34):
take our eyes off of the learnerand we start looking at the
employees, we forget about thescience of human behavior.
We know, because we engage inblaming and all this other stuff
Instead of looking at whatenvironment is maintaining their
behavior and what we need to do, more or less or differently,
as an important part of thatenvironment to get the best
behavior out of people.
And so I would argue that thatABA, I don't think I need to
(17:57):
argue with you, I'm sure you'llsupport it.
But ABA, the science, is theDNA of leadership, right?
And we are already equippedwith greatest toolbox in the
world for making a difference.
Right, the science of humanbehavior.
But in the toolbox would beorganizational behavior
management.
But organizational behaviormanagement is just applied
behavior analysis right, it justzooming out, it just getting
(18:17):
results through the behavior ofsomebody else instead of
directly working with it.
And so I think that everybody,unless you're working one on one
with the learner right and eventhen because you still have to
fade out you're still going toget behavior need to get
behavior change through someother people the parent, the
teacher, whatever in a waythat's going to likely sustain
the behavior of the learner thatare supporting or whatever.
(18:39):
So everybody needs OBM and Ithink it is the greatest toolbox
for leadership.
What's been your experiencewith that?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, I think it definitely is the greatest
toolbox.
I think being a behavioranalyst has actually contributed
greatly.
I would say 100% Wholeheartedly.
Being a behavior analyst iswhat makes me a good leader
Understanding human behavior andI think, what's unique about me
.
That shouldn't be uniquebecause we all have the same
skill set.
We all have the same trainingas behavior analysts, but one
(19:07):
thing that's unique it has beenmy ability to look at human
behavior in a variety of forms,so it's very easy for me to step
out of autism and go okay.
Right now, my learner is thisnew hire that I'm training or my
learner is this director that Ijust brought on and
understanding enough about them.
Being able to study people andbeing interested and being
(19:27):
fascinated by human behavior andin all of its facets, and
understanding how people aredifferent and what contingencies
they're going to respond bestto and what motivates them, what
reinforces their behavior.
But also being able to use thescience of behavior analysis to
pinpoint that was something thatI was really interested in when
I was working in the field withkids is I would sometimes the
(19:49):
behavior would be happening or achild would be really
struggling with a skill and Iwould sit and watch.
People expected me to jump inreal quick and I would sit and
watch and I became an observer,a very keen observer, to what is
it that this person is tryingto accru what maybe are they
thinking?
Taking the perspective of thelearner even the autistic
learner and understanding whatis it that it is going to what
(20:13):
is it how can I teach a skill ina way that this person is going
to be able to receive it?
How can I provide feedback in away that this person is going
to be able to receive it andthen implement it Right?
And I think that a lot of times,especially in the field of
behavior analysis, as leaders wehave so many other things
coming from.
There's so many distractionsfor us.
We forget to become an observerof human behavior and we forget
(20:36):
that we're actually the teacher.
We forget that we're theinstructors.
You know, as leaders, we forgetthat we are the ones that are
supposed to be modeling thebehavior or that we're supposed
to be providing tools that canhelp the learner you know better
, conceptualize what theexpectations are, and so we
forget about how to see thestrategies that we can put in
place to lead our team right,and that there's not really a
(20:57):
one-size-fits-all type of leader.
We have to be dynamic as leadersand be able to be willing to
change our interventions forindividuals in order to be able
to lead groups.
You know, and make sure thateverybody.
I think for me, one thing aboutbeing in a workspace that I
feel like I have belonging isfeeling like I'm seen or who I
am, or how I operate, or how Ithink you know and for what I
(21:17):
truly need in order to performat my highest and best use.
You know we've lost that as anart.
The higher up you get, that artbecomes more and more watered
down because there are otherbeings that are controlling our
behavior, at least.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yep, and I think that we also forget that in a sense,
that everybody in thatenvironment is also a learner.
You know, again, if we're goingto get any generalization from
you know, whatever we do withthe learner we got to think
about that teacher is a learner,you know, that employee is that
supervisor's learner, thatmanager is a learner, unless
(21:52):
they're equipped with thescience and behavior.
What I'm also finding is thatmost of the folks in our field
are suffering from this behaviorin myopia, because they forget,
you know, to apply the scienceor look at things through a
scientific lens when peoplearen't performing to your point,
like being a good observer ofbehavior.
So let's make a shift.
I want to make a shift becausewe talked about a lot of the
problems and we are talkingabout some of the solutions, but
(22:14):
I know what would be the idealorganization for you, because I
feel like here's what we need todo.
Right, in general, I do this,my business, I have a consulting
business, but I and two pointssimilarly like I don't I don't
really want employees eitherhave partners right, the Nica,
costa, massacoria.
I don't want to deal with thatstuff, even though I know how to
get the best out of people.
I've done it in differentorganizations.
(22:35):
It is a trip man, it's not easy, it's a lot of responsibility.
I'm like I just want to put outcontent that's going to help
people and I want to consult andcoach and give trainings in
those pieces of the puzzle.
Right, I don't want to have todeal with anything else that's
associated with that, but whenwe go into an organization, what
we want to know is what?
What is a standard, right?
What do you want this to looklike?
(22:55):
And we chain it behaviorallyright.
Well, what outcomes do you wantto produce?
Well, what's that?
You know?
I'm just going to use schoolsas an example, because the easy
one.
Well, what?
What behaviors do you need thestudent to engage in to produce
the outcomes?
And what behaviors you need theteachers to engage in that are
going to help the students dothat?
And what about the schoolleaders?
And it and it chains it all theway up.
And so you start to find outlike they're like.
Well, I'm not really sure youknow or you need help them
(23:17):
figure out what it should looklike behaviorally.
Obviously, we'reoperationalizing stuff, not
saying respectful.
What's that mean to berespectful, you know?
And it should be aligned withtheir values.
We start with the values, bythe way.
If we go there, then we comeback and do the same thing, we
say, okay, well, what does thatlook like right now?
And now you have something tocompare to.
Here is the current baselinewhere you're at, here's the
(23:38):
standard, what is responsiblefor that deficit?
And so, knowing what somethingshould look like, I don't know
that people really think aboutlike that vision right Of where.
How do we want it?
But what's your vision for anorganization?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, I think you know, my vision for an
organization is number one adiverse place that just honors
differences and values andvalues.
Individuality, I think, andauthenticity.
For me, those are really,though.
That's really what we aretelling the world when we say
that we're working with peoplewith disabilities and partnering
(24:13):
with them to be able to, youknow, access this world right,
and then we build workspaceswhere the very people that we
are helping would never be ableto thrive in right, they would
never be welcome and they wouldnever be hired there.
And so I think it goes back tothe integrity of the
organization.
You know, the organization, what, what an organization says,
(24:34):
that that they stand for andwhat they say that their mission
and their values are, and theirvision is tying every single
thing back to that.
Every single decision thatneeds to be made should tie
directly back to that right.
That's where we struggle,because we get into the minutia
of, like, all of the otherthings that are happening in
front of us, and I think theytend to distract us from really
(24:57):
making decisions, making changes, implementing things that and
strategies, designing a strategy, that every single part of that
strategy, no matter how faraway see if it's a financial
strategy, does the way thatwe're going to carry out that
strategy in order to get anoutcome, does it and does it
relate directly back to themission as the outcome and
(25:20):
that's something that I think isawesome.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Oh, my god man.
So again, coming back to whatyou mean, you just restated
different words what I wastalking about earlier, and that
is those values, that thosevalue statements, those mission
statements.
They don't mean jack if youdon't align behaviors with them.
And so, but you got to startthere, because now we start to
look at our behaviors and wepromote self awareness.
But not only do we have to haveself awareness, but once we've
(25:44):
identified those values in thebehavior alignment, now as
leaders we got to reinforcethose behaviors.
So you know, what does it meanto create equitability and
individuality and diversity?
And what behaviors does thatleader need to engage in that's
going to promote that kind ofculture, and what would be just
a couple.
I'm not going to put you onspot to dump out, but like what
(26:04):
would we need to see leaders toengage in to promote diversity
and individuality andauthenticity?
Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
I think one thing that leaders can do probably the
biggest thing is to make surethat they're, that they are
accountable and that the peoplethat they they're holding
themselves accountable, they'reholding their leaders
accountable and the people thatthey directly manage accountable
to, to metrics, kpis, specific,measurable, you know, things
(26:32):
that we can put in place that weknow are going to guarantee
that we get back to that outcome.
There's a lot of, like you know, at the, at the upper
management level, there's a lotabout metrics around utilization
or around.
You know, there's brandstrategy, right, and what
happens is you have brandstrategy and what brand strategy
should be about is sharing thisvalue proposition that's very
(26:53):
authentic to the culture of thecompany and that builds, that
draws in other people.
That would be a good fit forthat company, right, and that
would potentially let peopleknow about the behavior of this
organization and how we're goingto, what direction we're going
to go and when we come to theforks in the road, what is going
to guide us, right, but there'sno accountability.
So we lose track, because thenwe develop brand strategies that
(27:15):
are really more about marketingto get more people in the door,
whether or not they align withour values, whether or not those
people you know, whether or notthere's any values alignment at
all culturally.
But we're getting more peoplein the door to meet this demand
and and then we're gettingcaught into this hamster wheel
of just trying to meet thedemand.
So I think like staying focusedis really important for leaders
(27:37):
, because it's very easy to takesomething like brand strategy
and think that it's about growthand it's about more money.
It's really aboutaccountability to the values
that we say that we're going tolive by as a team and calling in
the right people.
More quality over quantitywould be nice in this industry
and I think, a lot of timesright now, what I'm noticing is
there are a lot of fake, fakeass initiatives.
(27:58):
Am I allowed to say?
Speaker 1 (27:59):
fake.
Oh, you get me excited when youcause go ahead.
I did talk for Cambridgerecently.
The Center for Behavior Studiesand and my buddy Peter counted
the amount of times I droppedthe swear words.
He goes you might have out, youmight have broken the record
for swearing at a professionalconference.
I was just so pissed about badleadership.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I get so passionate about it, you know and you know,
like the thing is that whatI've learned is that for
companies that I worked at Iworked at you know different
ones and I've consulted for someand what I'm noticing is
there's just these, um, there'sreal values that are being put
onto, like the website, and thatthey're talking about right,
and in meetings, what they do.
(28:41):
What I've seen which is reallycrazy is I've been in like board
meetings where we're talkingabout what they really care
about the numbers, the bottomline, the financial implications
of things, and it has nothingto do with people, it's not
people centered at all, and thenthey're like so how do we go
now deliver this to the team andmake it feel like whatever
(29:02):
we're saying we're all about onthe website?
So like there's like this faceand the reason I think that like
metrics are the most and that'scrazy right To be in that
position where I'm in the middle.
So there's like this I've seenit so much I know, yeah, I know
what's really, what really thepurpose is, and I have to go
figure out how to deliver themessage that matches this fake
(29:23):
ass brand strategy right, and sothat I mean that could be
around DEI initiatives, andthat's why I feel like it's
important that we have metricsthat tie back to the mission, so
that we're like how many peopleare we actually reaching, how
many people are we helping?
What is the actual outcome forour clients?
What is diversity really tothis company and how many people
(29:43):
do we actually have that workhere that represent the
population that we're workingwith, whether that's race,
ability, ability level, skillset, things like that?
How are we religion?
What do we actually have interms of receipts that are
showing that what we're sayingwe're all about all the touchy,
feely stuff that we care, thatwe love you to come work here
(30:04):
what metrics are we measuring tomake sure that every single
person within that organization,from the front line all the way
up to the CEO, has aresponsibility to actually
demonstrate those beliefs andthose values in action?
That is missing?
I think that's the issue withthe workplace is that the
disconnect is truly just, thatthe leaders are in a position,
(30:25):
either they're put in a positionor they're willingly going into
a position where they're justlying.
They're just telling peoplethat they care in order to get
people's buy in, so that peoplethink that buy in is going to
help people to perform in theway that they need them to
perform, in order to make themmore money or to grow their
company or meet whatever it isthat their goals are.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I swear you are like my female values or intellectual
doppelganger or something likethat.
Everything you're saying isjust like I don't stop thinking
about it and talking about itand it drives me nuts.
You're going to love this, oneof the things I focus on a lot.
Everything you just said we gotto have measurement and if you
(31:06):
want to see what a companyreally values, see what they
measure Now I'm not going to saythey don't value the other
things, they haven't thoughtdeeply enough about it because,
for example, I'll go into anyorganization in any school
anywhere and almost always, if Iask them, do you value
relationships, do you value theinput from stakeholders?
I say yes.
I said, well, how often are youchecking in with that?
(31:27):
They said, well, we give a oncea year climate survey, a
culture survey.
I'm like what the fuck are yougoing to do with that?
That's an autopsy, right.
That's not finding out how theyfeel and acting upon it.
Like when I went in, when I wasa new leader coming in,
especially in crisis situations,I had a weekly survey, five
questions, right, how you feelabout things.
Social validity, because now Icould act on it.
(31:47):
When I acted on it, man, theyfelt very valued, and sometimes
you know their problem wassomething that I maybe didn't
communicate well enough, or theymisunderstood, they didn't
understand the why behindsomething.
But you're right, man, we gotto have these measures and we
have to have measures of youknow how you measure diversity,
that there's a count to that.
You know it could be, you knowauthenticity.
It could be the number ofpeople who report that they feel
(32:09):
that they could give input orthey can be themselves, or
whatever.
But we can't make it about theresult without making it about
the people and their behavior.
And what's amazing to me isthat in our field, I have an
article that's called OBM.
Where for out, though?
And I thought I was saying OBM.
Where the hell are you?
Apparently where, for out downmeant something else, but
probably think most people likeme somebody correct me on it
(32:30):
probably think that same thing,so I just left it that way.
But I'm like, how are webehavior scientists right and
still using coercive coercion,using these approaches, and not
finding out what's reinforcingto people in the workplace,
because they're going to getmuch more of the bottom line
right, they want to make themoney, but they're going to get
better retention, they're goingto get higher performance, all
(32:50):
these mental health is going tobe better, all these positive
outcomes and the answer I knowwhat it is is that part of it is
that there's an immediatereinforcement reinforcer for
engaging this kind of behaviorbecause they get immediate
change right and creating thiskind of culture of
sustainability that's groundedin positive reinforcement.
It's probably going to take aminute to build that stuff up,
but when you have an authenticleader and you, you involve your
(33:13):
stakeholders with it, you heartheir feedback and then they end
up authoring it, they own it.
You become a team, and a teamthat will keep going.
Now I will say the one, one ofthe situations that I've seen
where the leaders have workedaround.
This is where they pay people alot of money right Now, for
example, you see this maybe inthe corporate world, where, in
(33:37):
stock markets, where stockbrokers you know that culture is
horrible man, I've heardterrible stories and you know
they're like stepping on theirown mom's back to make a buck,
you know, and they're alsotaking like a lot of abuse and
but they're doing it in the nameof the buck, right, because
that reinforcement is sopowerful that you know they're
(33:59):
going to engage in thosebehaviors.
And I see people I call itgolden handcuffs.
I've seen people making a waymore money than they would
normally make somewhere else,and of course I don't blame them
, right, because they have afamily and they won't have this
opportunity to make this kind ofmoney somewhere else, and and
so they end up.
I don't want to say it'sselling their soul, it's
something else, because I don'tthat suggests like they're bad
(34:20):
people or something like that,but because I don't have it's a
good, I think.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I think good people sell their souls.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, well, I think, when they, I think they become,
I feel, I think, I think in thelong run it erodes them and they
look back, they feel bad.
But now they're caught becausetheir whole lifestyle is
maintained by this income.
And now where are they going togo?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
I think you know and being beingin a leadership seat like
people will have no idea, paulywhat it feels like to receive
feedback difficult, hardfeedback to be checked okay,
checked by people that you pay,but it is in complete honesty.
(35:03):
It takes so much humility, andnot only people that you pay,
but people that you have been inthis industry for 17 years, and
it's the people that I meetwho've been in the industry
anywhere half as long as I have.
They're in lateral positions tome or they're doing other things
in the field, but the peoplethat I employ are like zero to
(35:25):
five years and they have thisvantage point that is on the
ground, and it's an importantvantage point because you get to
see up close, you're in it,you're experiencing it, and
that's important because I wantto know how people experience
the company.
Human experience is extremelyimportant to me in my personal
life and also in my professionallife, but they don't have the
perspective taking because theycan't fathom what it's like to
(35:47):
sit in my seat right, or even inthe seat adjacent to me or in
the seat below mine, and so it'sthat, the humility that it
takes to still sit and takefeedback, and not only to take
feedback but to solicit it.
So I believe in social validity.
We survey at my company often,very often.
(36:08):
We actually have.
You know when you go to theairport and those little things
with a smiley face was thebathroom.
We have those in our treatmentcenters.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Anyone can just go hit them, and so we have them
for clients and we have them forstaff, and so we want to know.
And then I'll ask you aquestion.
Once you press the littlebutton, it's like, well, why the
smiley face?
Or like, why the mad face?
And then all of these results,they come back and I get to read
them.
Actually, if they are toonegative, in a short period of
time I get an email that alertsme, that tells me why people are
(36:39):
unhappy.
Because I want to know.
But to take the ginormousamounts of feedback and, number
one, be humble about thatfeedback and go OK, this is
someone's perspective andeveryone's perspective is
relevant, because these are thepeople whose perspectives impact
the perspectives of others.
That's number one, right, butalso there are so many
(37:01):
perspectives that it's alsoreally difficult to stay focused
as a leader on whichperspectives we should be.
Like every problem isn't reallyone that warrants immediate
solving and helping people tounderstand, maybe, how we're
going to address a bigger issuebut this is going to fall into
that, or why something has to beon the back burner or why
(37:22):
something maybe is not apriority.
That's really.
And then having the backlash ofthat, that's difficult and I
think leaders have a hard time.
I've had to give reallydifficult feedback to my leaders
, to my CEO at previouscompanies, directly to the CEO.
This is how this makes me feel.
If you do this, this is how thepeople are going to perceive
your actions.
What message do you think thatyou're sending?
(37:43):
I want to know because you areasking me to deliver the message
right, so I need you to answerthat question, and it wasn't met
with welcome.
No one goes oh huh, you knowwhat.
Thank you for giving me aperspective that I could Let me
rework that.
That's not the response thatwe're getting.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
But that's the indicator that you probably not
in the right spot when you getthat kind of response.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, because that's the selling your soul part.
Right, the soul part comes whenyou're at that fork in the road
where you're like I eithergoing to give my CEO this really
difficult feedback and nowpotentially they hate me, or
maybe I'm passed up foropportunities, especially being
a black woman.
I'm all ready a black woman.
I'm at the table, but theyreally don't want me to speak
(38:27):
unless I'm spoken to.
So now I have to raise my handand say something that nobody I
answer a question or ask aquestion nobody asked me to
bring to the table, and I haveto hope that it doesn't end in
retaliation.
You know, and unfortunately forme, it did.
But what I have, you know, tohold on to is I understand how
(38:48):
important it is as a leadersitting in that seat, to be able
to hear and see and really askfor, request, the perspectives
of others, so that I can seemyself and my organization
through their eyes, to make sureand not everything is like
valid right.
Some stuff is focused, but youknow what?
Because I measure, because Ican be accountable only to what
(39:08):
I need to be accountable to.
Hey, I have data that actuallybacks up that what you're saying
is really, truly yourperception, but that's not
actually the facts.
That's not the truth, right,that's not.
That's maybe how you're seeingit and we can do what we can to
try to mitigate that, but wehave data that shows that 95
percent of everybody else isseeing it.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
It's so powerful to have that stuff because the data
does talking and you can.
I are actually doing a talk, soI don't want to give it way too
much of my stuff for Stone Soupfor called Tough Talks coming
up, because you do need tounderstand how to have tough
talks.
As you were speaking about this, I thought you know.
You know the great thing isthat positive reinforcement
should be leveraged to go everydirection right, and the higher
(39:48):
up the totem pole you are on inthe org chart, the less likely
you're getting in touch withpositive reinforcement from
people, right.
So we need to teach people toremember to positively reinforce
up.
Your leaders are probably doinga lot of good things, right?
So let them know what they'redoing well.
Use behavior, specific praise,tell them what they're doing,
how it's the impact of it, right.
So do that stuff.
(40:09):
So that way, when you do gothat, when feedback they don't
see you as that person right,that's always coming to them
with problems.
We'd all feel that way ifthat's the problem.
Now to your point.
Now you have to look forpatterns of responses.
You can't just like looking foran isolated response, although
sometimes somebody might have areally good point oh great, I
need to look more deeply into it, but the patterns of responses,
(40:31):
that we need to look, dig moredeeply into, find out well,
what's at the root of it and isit legitimate or not.
I think that's very important.
And finally, I want to say that, with that data because you're
getting data about certain,about that that's linked to
other employees, managers,supervisors, et cetera, et
cetera One of the problems thatI see way too often is that data
(40:51):
is using to beat people up andit should be using to coach them
, to help them grow right.
So we need to, and that's whysocial validity is so important.
I really believe in these 360degree surveys where we're just
getting a gauge, so people toyour point, we can see what
their perspective is, andcertainly there's bias, there's
things that will impact it.
But when you get data over time, you get to see norms and you
(41:13):
get to see ripple effects andthose things and figure out.
All right, what do we want tofocus on?
And we can help people tobetter, be better, preserve
their behavior and the impact ofit on the environment and the
employees, being a critical, themost critical part of that
environment for producing valuedoutcomes for the organization.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah, I agree.
I think it's interesting toobecause there's this generation,
this generational gap, which Ihate to say that, because I feel
like I'm about 25 years old inmy heart and so to see that
there are like 25 year olds thatI just have a really hard time
getting on the same page withit's interesting because I
didn't think I had come that far.
But what data also helps to dois it informs me regularly about
(41:57):
what matters to the currentworkforce, because I can list
what's going to make athriveable workspace for me.
Based on my experiences, basedon how I was raised, based on my
generation and how we did workwhen I was in the field, we
overall intrinsically motivated.
It was nice if our boss told usthat we did a good job, right,
it was nice if we got a bonus,but like we were just there and
(42:19):
then we have a healthycompetition between us and like
other behavior analysts, youknow, or we'd get together and
collaborate on like doingsomething really cool.
Now their motivations are very,very different.
Than you know, the 20 to 25year olds of today are motivated
by very different things thanwhat we were motivated by, and
(42:40):
so it's been kind of a honestlya tough pill to swallow because
I'm like you know.
I believe that everyone shoulddo 100% of their job in exchange
for 100% of their paycheck.
Matching law right, likematching, it should just match.
But these people, they wantother things.
They want to feel, they want tobe a part of something bigger
than them.
You know they want to worksmarter, not harder.
(43:02):
You know they want to beinnovative, they want to feel
like they can create.
And so, having people tell youwhat matters to them and, like
you said, taking that data andgoing well, what patterns are we
seeing in their responses?
Even if I disagree with them orI'm like I don't truly
understand that, I'm notmotivated by that, seeing that
large groups within myorganization are going this
(43:23):
direction.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
That's the reinforcement, those are the
reinforce.
So what can we do to providethat kind of you know, that kind
of environment for you?
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah, yeah, because because truly, I realized I
thought I knew, but there are somany things about the current
workforce that I just did notknow and I still struggle to
understand and that I mightdeeply disagree with, but it
really takes again that humilityto go.
You know what?
This is the direction we'regoing.
This is what the people want inorder to stop the turnover.
(43:53):
They want to be seen for whatmatters to them right now.
There's a lot of like socialjustice things going on.
There's a lot of mental health.
You know, people are gettingmore comfortable talking about
how their work impacts theirmental health, and so that
wasn't something we were allowedto talk about at work when, I
was coming up in the field.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
I'm glad that all that says being talked about now
.
I'm a social worker, you know.
I started off with that, so Ibelieve in all that.
I feel like the science isgetting sucked in and like a
negative way to some of thisstuff.
You know, the science in myeyes is the science.
We need to leverage it to helppeople, you know.
But anyways, that justtriggered me for a second with
some stuff that's been going on.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah, you know, and we have to figure out how to get
the metrics met right, becausewe do have to build thriveable.
You use the word sustainable,you know, and sustainability
sometimes I wonder like, is this, if you add this model, is the
current model a sustainablemodel for this industry?
And in many ways it's not.
Unless you're doing that, likeyou know, money crazed, rapid
(44:50):
growth, nothing else really.
The human approach doesn'treally feel sustainable and
that's what I think that's.
That fork in the road thatleaders are coming to is like
that human centered approach isreally hard to maintain on the
financial side.
Keep the doors open.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Well, I think that, thank goodness, you have
organizational behaviormanagement as your toolbox,
because it's an adaptable systemand that's the thing right.
We need to have environmentsthat are going to be adaptable
and if you have good measurement, feedback loops and they're
tight enough, you can respond toissues right and but into your
point, you need to have metricsfor all these different things
(45:26):
and they need to be on a nicedashboard, need to be looking at
them and figuring out the whyor reinforcing what's going in
the right direction, and that'swhat good behavior analysts do.
So, man portion, we're gettingup to the hour here and this has
been like a part of amasterclass for leadership.
I feel like you know leadershipand a lot of fun.
I mean, we really I got tothank Nick again for for
(45:47):
connecting us, because we arejust so aligned with our
thoughts and our passions andour values with this kind of
stuff.
So I want to have you back onagain at some point, because I
was like shooting the shit withmy buddy.
You know I mean.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Oh, I can talk shit all day.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Well, we definitely will.
Now, if, if somebody wanted toreach out to you for anything,
you know what would be, and I'mjust going to ask you if you can
send me something for the shownotes and I'll pop it in there,
you know, but what would be thebest way to get in touch with
you?
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Best way to get in touch with me is email.
I'm not opposed to sharing myemail.
Maybe one day I'll beoverwhelmed in my inbox, but you
can also share LinkedIn if youwant.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
That's better oh.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
LinkedIn is great as well.
I'm bad on LinkedIn.
The thing is, I hate to tellpeople that this is a good way
to get in touch with me, andthen I'm like I'm really bad on
LinkedIn.
I'm really good on Instagram atMiss Portia M-I-S-S-P-O-R-T-I-A.
I'm super good on there, but myemail is really.
I get a lot of people that justdrop into my email inbox and go
(46:49):
hey, I had a question aboutthis or that, so my email is
pjames at behaviorgeniuscom.
I can be.
I check my email all day, everyday, so that's that's probably
the easiest way to get in touchwith me between that and
Instagram, which is where I havemy fun.
I entertain fun conversations.
If it needs to get serious, Ischedule Zoom calls with people
(47:12):
and jump into email, but that'sreally where people can really
connect with who I am and whatI'm doing on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Okay, awesome.
It's been a real pleasurechatting with you and we will
definitely be having you onsometime in the near future.
Thanks, Portia.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I would love that.
Thank you, Polly.
Welcome to the thoughts and rants of a behavior
scientist show Hosted by WallStreet.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Journal in USA Today.
Best-selling author Dr Pauley.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
All right, welcome Portia James to the podcast.
I gotta tell the listeners herethat my good friend dr Nick
Green was at a conference, Ithink it was the.
Was it the Weba conference,portia?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It was yeah we've been asked this year.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, and I get a message from him.
He goes oh my god, you got tomeet this woman, portia James.
I gotta connect you guys.
You're so Like-minded and youknow you probably should have
her on the podcast.
So I'm like, all right, itsounds good.
He's like, no, no, no, I'mserious, you got to have her on
man.
I'm like, okay, brother, let metake a look and go.
And so I looked at her, some ofher background.
I'm like, oh, cool man, we'relike we're living in some of the
(00:47):
same areas, if we seem like wehave some of the same passions.
Of course she's a baby analyst,she, she, you know, she focuses
on organizational behaviormanagement and she also, you
know, has a passion for creatingHealthy workforces, people
where people feel valued andit's equitable.
And so when I heard that, Ithought you know, this is a,
(01:11):
this is somebody want to talk toyou, because I would love to
hear about your experiences andI would love to talk about how
we can leverage the signs ofhuman behavior for creating a
better workplace.
I have a dream that one day soI Didn't mean to say that, or
I'm not trying to be Martin, butthat one day, you know, there's
the work will be a place wherepeople want to go, where they
(01:31):
feel valued and care for allthese places, and I Do.
You believe in our field, or anyfield, if you're gonna, if
you're gonna give this consumerswhat you need.
In our field there's a lot ofconsumers who, you know, have
disabilities.
Well, can't bring out the bestin them if you don't bring out
the folks, the best in the folksin the workplace.
And Too many people are justlooking at the bottom line, the
result they're trying to produce, and not thinking about the
(01:52):
people and their behaviorrequired to produce it.
So anyways, portia James,welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
I'm excited to be here and tokind of just chop it up with you
about, about this topic.
That's really become very much.
You know my life's work, youknow, yeah, creating workspaces
that people don't have torecover from.
I think that's like the biggestthing, especially, you know,
(02:20):
being a black woman and comingup in this industry.
I've been in for 17 years now.
Gosh, the time flew.
So many things about thisindustry have changed since I
got into the industry, in termsof not just the workplace but
the field at large.
So much has changed.
I know it was the autism ratewas one in 166 when I got into
(02:45):
the field and someone gave meone in 33 yesterday and I was
like again so, yeah, there'sjust been although we're not
sure if that's you know.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
They were just, you know, diagnosing more.
Yeah, I think so.
I think with education.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, you know people being educated parents being a
little bit more in a position toadvocate for themselves and for
their kids, and you know Makingsure that they're able to, to
give you information that theyneed in order to get the
diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, but either way, it's still like man needs to be
addressed.
Thank goodness that we havescience, even behavior, although
we don't have enough people goaround to support all the needs
and people don't understand whatwe bring to the table and
there's some misnomers about it.
But thank goodness for thescience.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, yeah, I think that that's definitely.
You know, that is the issue,right is that we there's this
demand now that has increasedyear over year that we're just,
I think, as Business leaders,trying to meet the demand and
we're feeling the strain of thatmore now than I think we ever
have is it is true.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, let's talk.
Talk a little bit about whenyou actually wrote this.
Now, if you see me moving hertyping, I'm just making little
notes right.
When you said recovering fromthe workplace oh my god, did
that that resonate with me?
Because I, I don't know, I justkeep putting my foot in it.
It seems like too often, notanymore.
I'm in a great spot, love, whereI want to be, but I I just what
(04:12):
I found is that there seems tobe More bad leaders than good
leaders, and I don't want to saybad, I should say you know
leaders with bad behavior,because it doesn't mean that
they're bad people.
Oftentimes it's a skill deficit,but I do find that there's
seems like a higher percentageof those that we might drop into
(04:32):
a Classification ofnarcissistic.
Narcissistic leaders and thatare like brutal, they want to
control all the reinforcers, man, they I don't know there might
be signs of damage.
So I see this kind of stuffhappening.
But I still have like dreams of, you know, some of my past
experiences and although a lotof them weren't necessarily
directed at me, it was, I didn't.
(04:52):
I always feel, I still feelthis tremendous sense of guilt
where I saw people not beingtreated in a way that I valued
and I didn't stick up for themor I didn't try to do something
differently for fear of my ownjob or fear of you know Whatever
consequences I might experience, and I hate that I allowed that
to happen.
I got to the point where I'mlike never gonna let it happen
(05:15):
again.
Wow the points where I'veconfronted Leaders, you know,
face-to-face, and probably saidsome things I shouldn't have
said, because you probablyshouldn't speak to people that
way, but I was just angry Aboutit because I saw it so happen
and I'm a fighter.
You know, I'm a fighter andlike I'm never gonna hit anybody
, do anything.
But in my mind I'm like, oh,I'm so angry for that happening
(05:35):
and I don't think it's a goodidea to do coercion with
coercion.
But man, I'm human, you know,correct, but what kind of things
have you seen?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
It's so interesting, you know, like being in the
field, working in the field asbehavior analyst and just not
having the access to be able toreally see what happens in the
corporate role, like at theC-suite at that higher level,
you know, departmental director,you know, where I'm able to
kind of get a glimpse, andpretty early on into my my kind
of corporate role, and I wasable to see, really
(06:05):
interestingly, how, like thecontingencies and the variables
that people are working, thepressure that people at that
level are operating under, aretotally different, like the
things that are driving theirbehavior are very, very
different than what drives ourbehavior Right like we are.
We get into the field because wecare, you know and we or we
enjoy the work, we genuinelyenjoy the work or we have these
(06:27):
dreams or these goals.
You know for me personally Igot into the industry and I went
to school.
I did my undergraduate work andI thought that I would go into
marriage and family therapy.
So I was actually looking intoan MFT program.
When I graduated college and Itook an internship the last one
that was available,procrastinated, it took the last
one that was available ended upin autism.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Oh my god, hold on pause.
There we are, so much alike.
I started to go in there.
I'm a therapist, I was a socialworker, I went to that field
and I ended up working inresidential treatment facilities
with sex offenders because IProcrastinated.
But I think the greatestexperience ever had and it's
also where I was exposed to somebehavior analysis etc.
But go ahead.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, I just was like , oh shoot, you know, I got a
graduate on time and and so Ihad to choose autism.
I had never met a kid, you know, who had autism.
I was extremely unfamiliar.
I said I would never go intospecial education.
I actually didn't want to workwith kids, I wanted to work with
adolescents and families on thefamily therapy side, and so, so
(07:24):
you know, I got into theindustry because I just I fell
in love.
I fell in love with a littleboy who struggled and, and more
so than that, I fell in lovewith the story of his family
going back to marriage andfamily therapy and the things
that they were dealing with Likein their marriage.
You know, at the time thedivorce rate in the States was
toward 50%, but for kids,specifically with autism, I had
(07:45):
learned that it was like in the80s.
You know and so I like this isthe bet.
This is the greatest vantagepoint to help families is from
inside of their homes.
You know, helping navigate thisspace of having a child that
they just don't understand, youknow, and they just can't come
to to agreement on, and so so,yeah, I got into it for the love
of like families and buildingfamilies and seeing families
Thrive and get back on the samepage with each other, and that's
(08:06):
what I did for, you know, 14years working in the field until
I became a clinical director.
And then, once I left thatclinical director role, I
realized, oh shoot, there's awhole world of things that our
leaders at the top Are concernedabout and they, they truly have
very little to do with families, with the contingencies that
drive us, the ones that are inthe field, and so there's
(08:28):
definitely a disconnect there,and I think it's for that reason
.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
There is man, it looks a lot.
I've been up in those suitesand it's a lot different and
they're so far removed from thatend result in the frontline
Worker, with that rbt's doingand the impact that they're
having and they're not able toalign their behaviors with that.
And it is.
And I've seen people again,unfortunately, like.
(08:53):
This is my humble opinion, Idon't have any research behind
this, but I feel that the bestleaders don't want to be leaders
because the responsibility isso great that you have, you know
, because you really care aboutpeople, you realize that every
decision that you make has thisripple effect across your
organization.
It is a large responsibility.
(09:14):
And then you have some peoplewho just want the positional
authority, they want thepositional power, they want the
title, they want the money.
And I'm not saying that all thatisn't great, of course.
You know what I mean.
We all want to feel good andattention is a very powerful,
most powerful reinforce in theworld.
So I'm not acting whole as now.
I don't want to do that.
You know, my titles have helpedme, certainly, and money helps
for sure.
(09:34):
But I feel that in the absenceof that value of caring about
people and putting people first,you know, and those reinforcers
, kind of taking over theattention, you know, the money
etc.
It becomes very dangerous andthey become, their behaviors
become very dangerous to people.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, 100%.
I think.
You know I I've definitely seenthe shift.
You know I had a boss that kindof similarly to you that I
would try to get him to to see.
You know how you said I justthere were things that I didn't
speak up for that I saw that Ijust I probably should have said
something.
I wonder about him often,actually, because I'm like I
wonder if he ever thinks aboutthe things that if it keeps him
(10:14):
up at night because it shouldlike if he's a good person, then
then it should.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
That's the question right.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, like it keeps me up at night, wondering if it
keeps you up at night.
You know, and so I do, though Iwonder often, like the decisions
that he had to make, and Iwould feel the same way, like
you know will I ever get to aposition where, where he is,
where he struggled with makingdecisions that were client and
(10:41):
people centered, because of whatwas on the line you know, his
job being on the line and whatwas expected, the responsibility
of a role of that magnitude?
And when I left that place, Ijust said I will never be in
that position.
I will leave this industrybefore I get myself to a place
where I would have to trade myintegrity, my beliefs and you
know what I've done, what I'vecreated as my life's work where
(11:04):
I have to trade that, myhumanity, you know, for whatever
these other contingencies areand I don't believe that it was
just money.
But there is this like driveright for, like more power or
even climbing the ladder, higherpositions, that you know, being
able to have your ownprofessional growth and
understanding that, well, thismust just come with the
territory I'm going to have to,you know, go away from what I
(11:25):
got, my reason for getting intothis and I'm going to have to
start to chase these other norms, and it must be a really
difficult.
I've always wondered where thatturning point is for people.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I well, I've been there and I've left a few jobs
and taken like pretty dramaticpay cuts.
You know, one time I was athird of my salary.
Who can just lose a third oftheir salary, you know, end up,
you know, getting it.
But I just couldn't do it.
You know, like just waking upand feeling like this is not
(11:57):
right, this is not me, it's notokay.
You know, even though I'm notsaying anything, it's like tacit
compliance and did not feelgood about that stuff.
And I didn't leave withoutfirst trying to shape the
behavior right, trying to askthe good questions and find out
what the values are and makethose connections.
But you know there's only somuch you can do without those
(12:18):
contingencies in place.
I do want to say this, though,that in sometimes, you know
again, most of the time I thinkit's good people just engaging
in some bad behavior rightmaking, not seeing, you know,
being well intended.
But it's not about intent.
At the end of the day, it'sabout impact and being poor
observers of their behavior.
Poor observers of the impact oftheir behavior on the
(12:38):
environment and poor observersof the impact of the environment
on their behavior.
But it's easy to be down, likeon the ground level, for example
, the front line, and judge theleader up there because you
don't understand thosecontingencies right.
It's very, very difficult to runan organization right, to run
an organization but to even bean entrepreneur.
(12:59):
I have a lot of respect forthese folks, man.
They dedicate their life, andsometimes too much of the life,
to it because you, you know, thebuck starts and ends with you.
So the stress that comes withit and I have my own side
business right now that I'mbuilding up, but I'm doing it at
my own pace and it's going well.
I haven't experienced some ofthe stress of people who invest
a lot of money into theorganization to get up and
(13:22):
running.
I've done a lot of sweat equityand that comes with.
I mean, you know it's like I'mlife or death, you know I don't
mean physically, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but to their career.
So there's a lot of stress upthere, so I don't want to come
across as, like again, holierthan now.
There are stressors that youcan't imagine if you've been in
that position having to navigateall the stuff that comes with
(13:42):
owning a business.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, I think you know, one thing I learned about
in entrepreneurship that Ididn't really fully, ever grasp
was that it something that thiscould be daily, weekly, monthly.
But there are these verydistinct forks in the road.
You know, once you've investedthe time and the money and the
energy and the heart, really,you know, more so than anything,
(14:04):
it's your compassion for whatyou do, your reason why you
started.
There are these like forks inthe road.
You know that that we come toas leaders and as business
owners where you do have to makedecisions that are life or
death for the company.
You know, and it's a, it's apressure that truly I wouldn't
(14:24):
wish on anyone.
People have asked me, like youknow would you, would you ever
start another company?
Like you know, would you ever go?
And you know, and it's hard forme to envision ever starting
another company where I haveemployees, because as soon as
you have employees, those forksin the road come a lot more
frequently.
And unfortunately, what happensin our industry and for
(14:45):
industry?
Leaders are right.
You know, leaders get judged,you know, from the frontline,
and the truth of the matter is,in this field at least, there is
really no training for leaders,especially for clinician owned
companies.
Bcba is our out.
Our value is in the field.
You know we're expected to bein the field working with
clients, and so we're not reallytaught to be effective leaders.
(15:06):
I don't think in all of my yearsof training, professional
development, I would have to domy continuing education units
and leadership and read booksabout leadership in order to try
to hone my skills and watch theleaders around me and mostly
decide the ones that, like I wasgoing to vow never to be, like
more.
So you know, like, oh, don'tever.
Let me get to the point.
(15:27):
I'm a very, I'm an excellentperson, I'm great at perspective
taking.
So I've always had aperspective of like, what
variables and what contingenciesare going on for that person
that they were put in a positionto have to come to that fork in
the road and go left, maybewhen I would have gone right,
you know, and thinking about,what is it that those people are
up against, where they feellike their backs are up against
(15:48):
the wall?
And that's really where youcome to know, like the nature of
a person, how a person willmake decisions is when their
back is up against the wall.
And I think for a lot of ourleaders, our backs are up
against the wall and we justdon't have the training or the
support to be able to, you know,be as effective in our
leadership as we want to be.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
You said so many important things that so closely
aligned my personal values.
A couple things that I want tomention.
I tried to get as many notes asI could while you're talking.
I didn't want to hear you,right.
So I like when you talk aboutperspective taking.
I think that is a criticalleadership behavior, but I think
that you have to value theperspective of others first,
(16:30):
right.
And again, I think that peoplemost leaders are just not you
know, they just don't knowbetter, right, there's a skill
deficit.
So I think that is criticalbecause you got to think about
what it would feel like to be onthe other end of this and how
they are experiencing this.
Because that comes back to theintentional search for the
impact of your behavior.
You can't just look for otherleaders and try to be that way,
(16:50):
right?
I like because you have seenthis in sports, where they come
out and they're hard on the teamand they're yelling at them and
people are saying that's theway you got to be a good leader,
but they're not seeing all theother stuff.
Like you know, they're showingup at the family dinners or the
talks that they're havingprivately, right, and so that
becomes like really important.
But I like what you pointed outand saying.
You know what?
(17:11):
There's some leaders' behaviorthat I don't want to engage in,
right, this bad behavior.
So I agree with that.
I got my doctorate inorganizational leadership and
here's what it did, right, itpopped when I went back to for
my doctorate.
It started to pop me out of thematrix.
I stopped suffering from what Icall behavior in myopia and I
suffer from sometimes we all domeaning that when we, when we
(17:34):
take our eyes off of the learnerand we start looking at the
employees, we forget about thescience of human behavior.
We know, because we engage inblaming and all this other stuff
Instead of looking at whatenvironment is maintaining their
behavior and what we need to do, more or less or differently,
as an important part of thatenvironment to get the best
behavior out of people.
And so I would argue that thatABA, I don't think I need to
(17:57):
argue with you, I'm sure you'llsupport it.
But ABA, the science, is theDNA of leadership, right?
And we are already equippedwith greatest toolbox in the
world for making a difference.
Right, the science of humanbehavior.
But in the toolbox would beorganizational behavior
management.
But organizational behaviormanagement is just applied
behavior analysis right, it justzooming out, it just getting
(18:17):
results through the behavior ofsomebody else instead of
directly working with it.
And so I think that everybody,unless you're working one on one
with the learner right and eventhen because you still have to
fade out you're still going toget behavior need to get
behavior change through someother people the parent, the
teacher, whatever in a waythat's going to likely sustain
the behavior of the learner thatare supporting or whatever.
(18:39):
So everybody needs OBM and Ithink it is the greatest toolbox
for leadership.
What's been your experiencewith that?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, I think it definitely is the greatest
toolbox.
I think being a behavioranalyst has actually contributed
greatly.
I would say 100% Wholeheartedly.
Being a behavior analyst iswhat makes me a good leader
Understanding human behavior andI think, what's unique about me
.
That shouldn't be uniquebecause we all have the same
skill set.
We all have the same trainingas behavior analysts, but one
(19:07):
thing that's unique it has beenmy ability to look at human
behavior in a variety of forms,so it's very easy for me to step
out of autism and go okay.
Right now, my learner is thisnew hire that I'm training or my
learner is this director that Ijust brought on and
understanding enough about them.
Being able to study people andbeing interested and being
(19:27):
fascinated by human behavior andin all of its facets, and
understanding how people aredifferent and what contingencies
they're going to respond bestto and what motivates them, what
reinforces their behavior.
But also being able to use thescience of behavior analysis to
pinpoint that was something thatI was really interested in when
I was working in the field withkids is I would sometimes the
(19:49):
behavior would be happening or achild would be really
struggling with a skill and Iwould sit and watch.
People expected me to jump inreal quick and I would sit and
watch and I became an observer,a very keen observer, to what is
it that this person is tryingto accru what maybe are they
thinking?
Taking the perspective of thelearner even the autistic
learner and understanding whatis it that it is going to what
(20:13):
is it how can I teach a skill ina way that this person is going
to be able to receive it?
How can I provide feedback in away that this person is going
to be able to receive it andthen implement it Right?
And I think that a lot of times,especially in the field of
behavior analysis, as leaders wehave so many other things
coming from.
There's so many distractionsfor us.
We forget to become an observerof human behavior and we forget
(20:36):
that we're actually the teacher.
We forget that we're theinstructors.
You know, as leaders, we forgetthat we are the ones that are
supposed to be modeling thebehavior or that we're supposed
to be providing tools that canhelp the learner you know better
, conceptualize what theexpectations are, and so we
forget about how to see thestrategies that we can put in
place to lead our team right,and that there's not really a
(20:57):
one-size-fits-all type of leader.
We have to be dynamic as leadersand be able to be willing to
change our interventions forindividuals in order to be able
to lead groups.
You know, and make sure thateverybody.
I think for me, one thing aboutbeing in a workspace that I
feel like I have belonging isfeeling like I'm seen or who I
am, or how I operate, or how Ithink you know and for what I
(21:17):
truly need in order to performat my highest and best use.
You know we've lost that as anart.
The higher up you get, that artbecomes more and more watered
down because there are otherbeings that are controlling our
behavior, at least.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yep, and I think that we also forget that in a sense,
that everybody in thatenvironment is also a learner.
You know, again, if we're goingto get any generalization from
you know, whatever we do withthe learner we got to think
about that teacher is a learner,you know, that employee is that
supervisor's learner, thatmanager is a learner, unless
(21:52):
they're equipped with thescience and behavior.
What I'm also finding is thatmost of the folks in our field
are suffering from this behaviorin myopia, because they forget,
you know, to apply the scienceor look at things through a
scientific lens when peoplearen't performing to your point,
like being a good observer ofbehavior.
So let's make a shift.
I want to make a shift becausewe talked about a lot of the
problems and we are talkingabout some of the solutions, but
(22:14):
I know what would be the idealorganization for you, because I
feel like here's what we need todo.
Right, in general, I do this,my business, I have a consulting
business, but I and two pointssimilarly like I don't I don't
really want employees eitherhave partners right, the Nica,
costa, massacoria.
I don't want to deal with thatstuff, even though I know how to
get the best out of people.
I've done it in differentorganizations.
(22:35):
It is a trip man, it's not easy, it's a lot of responsibility.
I'm like I just want to put outcontent that's going to help
people and I want to consult andcoach and give trainings in
those pieces of the puzzle.
Right, I don't want to have todeal with anything else that's
associated with that, but whenwe go into an organization, what
we want to know is what?
What is a standard, right?
What do you want this to looklike?
(22:55):
And we chain it behaviorallyright.
Well, what outcomes do you wantto produce?
Well, what's that?
You know?
I'm just going to use schoolsas an example, because the easy
one.
Well, what?
What behaviors do you need thestudent to engage in to produce
the outcomes?
And what behaviors you need theteachers to engage in that are
going to help the students dothat?
And what about the schoolleaders?
And it and it chains it all theway up.
And so you start to find outlike they're like.
Well, I'm not really sure youknow or you need help them
(23:17):
figure out what it should looklike behaviorally.
Obviously, we'reoperationalizing stuff, not
saying respectful.
What's that mean to berespectful, you know?
And it should be aligned withtheir values.
We start with the values, bythe way.
If we go there, then we comeback and do the same thing, we
say, okay, well, what does thatlook like right now?
And now you have something tocompare to.
Here is the current baselinewhere you're at, here's the
(23:38):
standard, what is responsiblefor that deficit?
And so, knowing what somethingshould look like, I don't know
that people really think aboutlike that vision right Of where.
How do we want it?
But what's your vision for anorganization?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, I think you know, my vision for an
organization is number one adiverse place that just honors
differences and values andvalues.
Individuality, I think, andauthenticity.
For me, those are really,though.
That's really what we aretelling the world when we say
that we're working with peoplewith disabilities and partnering
(24:13):
with them to be able to, youknow, access this world right,
and then we build workspaceswhere the very people that we
are helping would never be ableto thrive in right, they would
never be welcome and they wouldnever be hired there.
And so I think it goes back tothe integrity of the
organization.
You know, the organization, what, what an organization says,
(24:34):
that that they stand for andwhat they say that their mission
and their values are, and theirvision is tying every single
thing back to that.
Every single decision thatneeds to be made should tie
directly back to that right.
That's where we struggle,because we get into the minutia
of, like, all of the otherthings that are happening in
front of us, and I think theytend to distract us from really
(24:57):
making decisions, making changes, implementing things that and
strategies, designing a strategy, that every single part of that
strategy, no matter how faraway see if it's a financial
strategy, does the way thatwe're going to carry out that
strategy in order to get anoutcome, does it and does it
relate directly back to themission as the outcome and
(25:20):
that's something that I think isawesome.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Oh, my god man.
So again, coming back to whatyou mean, you just restated
different words what I wastalking about earlier, and that
is those values, that thosevalue statements, those mission
statements.
They don't mean jack if youdon't align behaviors with them.
And so, but you got to startthere, because now we start to
look at our behaviors and wepromote self awareness.
But not only do we have to haveself awareness, but once we've
(25:44):
identified those values in thebehavior alignment, now as
leaders we got to reinforcethose behaviors.
So you know, what does it meanto create equitability and
individuality and diversity?
And what behaviors does thatleader need to engage in that's
going to promote that kind ofculture, and what would be just
a couple.
I'm not going to put you onspot to dump out, but like what
(26:04):
would we need to see leaders toengage in to promote diversity
and individuality andauthenticity?
Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
I think one thing that leaders can do probably the
biggest thing is to make surethat they're, that they are
accountable and that the peoplethat they they're holding
themselves accountable, they'reholding their leaders
accountable and the people thatthey directly manage accountable
to, to metrics, kpis, specific,measurable, you know, things
(26:32):
that we can put in place that weknow are going to guarantee
that we get back to that outcome.
There's a lot of, like you know, at the, at the upper
management level, there's a lotabout metrics around utilization
or around.
You know, there's brandstrategy, right, and what
happens is you have brandstrategy and what brand strategy
should be about is sharing thisvalue proposition that's very
(26:53):
authentic to the culture of thecompany and that builds, that
draws in other people.
That would be a good fit forthat company, right, and that
would potentially let peopleknow about the behavior of this
organization and how we're goingto, what direction we're going
to go and when we come to theforks in the road, what is going
to guide us, right, but there'sno accountability.
So we lose track, because thenwe develop brand strategies that
(27:15):
are really more about marketingto get more people in the door,
whether or not they align withour values, whether or not those
people you know, whether or notthere's any values alignment at
all culturally.
But we're getting more peoplein the door to meet this demand
and and then we're gettingcaught into this hamster wheel
of just trying to meet thedemand.
So I think like staying focusedis really important for leaders
(27:37):
, because it's very easy to takesomething like brand strategy
and think that it's about growthand it's about more money.
It's really aboutaccountability to the values
that we say that we're going tolive by as a team and calling in
the right people.
More quality over quantitywould be nice in this industry
and I think, a lot of timesright now, what I'm noticing is
there are a lot of fake, fakeass initiatives.
(27:58):
Am I allowed to say?
Speaker 1 (27:59):
fake.
Oh, you get me excited when youcause go ahead.
I did talk for Cambridgerecently.
The Center for Behavior Studiesand and my buddy Peter counted
the amount of times I droppedthe swear words.
He goes you might have out, youmight have broken the record
for swearing at a professionalconference.
I was just so pissed about badleadership.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I get so passionate about it, you know and you know,
like the thing is that whatI've learned is that for
companies that I worked at Iworked at you know different
ones and I've consulted for someand what I'm noticing is
there's just these, um, there'sreal values that are being put
onto, like the website, and thatthey're talking about right,
and in meetings, what they do.
(28:41):
What I've seen which is reallycrazy is I've been in like board
meetings where we're talkingabout what they really care
about the numbers, the bottomline, the financial implications
of things, and it has nothingto do with people, it's not
people centered at all, and thenthey're like so how do we go
now deliver this to the team andmake it feel like whatever
(29:02):
we're saying we're all about onthe website?
So like there's like this faceand the reason I think that like
metrics are the most and that'scrazy right To be in that
position where I'm in the middle.
So there's like this I've seenit so much I know, yeah, I know
what's really, what really thepurpose is, and I have to go
figure out how to deliver themessage that matches this fake
(29:23):
ass brand strategy right, and sothat I mean that could be
around DEI initiatives, andthat's why I feel like it's
important that we have metricsthat tie back to the mission, so
that we're like how many peopleare we actually reaching, how
many people are we helping?
What is the actual outcome forour clients?
What is diversity really tothis company and how many people
(29:43):
do we actually have that workhere that represent the
population that we're workingwith, whether that's race,
ability, ability level, skillset, things like that?
How are we religion?
What do we actually have interms of receipts that are
showing that what we're sayingwe're all about all the touchy,
feely stuff that we care, thatwe love you to come work here
(30:04):
what metrics are we measuring tomake sure that every single
person within that organization,from the front line all the way
up to the CEO, has aresponsibility to actually
demonstrate those beliefs andthose values in action?
That is missing?
I think that's the issue withthe workplace is that the
disconnect is truly just, thatthe leaders are in a position,
(30:25):
either they're put in a positionor they're willingly going into
a position where they're justlying.
They're just telling peoplethat they care in order to get
people's buy in, so that peoplethink that buy in is going to
help people to perform in theway that they need them to
perform, in order to make themmore money or to grow their
company or meet whatever it isthat their goals are.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I swear you are like my female values or intellectual
doppelganger or something likethat.
Everything you're saying isjust like I don't stop thinking
about it and talking about itand it drives me nuts.
You're going to love this, oneof the things I focus on a lot.
Everything you just said we gotto have measurement and if you
(31:06):
want to see what a companyreally values, see what they
measure Now I'm not going to saythey don't value the other
things, they haven't thoughtdeeply enough about it because,
for example, I'll go into anyorganization in any school
anywhere and almost always, if Iask them, do you value
relationships, do you value theinput from stakeholders?
I say yes.
I said, well, how often are youchecking in with that?
(31:27):
They said, well, we give a oncea year climate survey, a
culture survey.
I'm like what the fuck are yougoing to do with that?
That's an autopsy, right.
That's not finding out how theyfeel and acting upon it.
Like when I went in, when I wasa new leader coming in,
especially in crisis situations,I had a weekly survey, five
questions, right, how you feelabout things.
Social validity, because now Icould act on it.
(31:47):
When I acted on it, man, theyfelt very valued, and sometimes
you know their problem wassomething that I maybe didn't
communicate well enough, or theymisunderstood, they didn't
understand the why behindsomething.
But you're right, man, we gotto have these measures and we
have to have measures of youknow how you measure diversity,
that there's a count to that.
You know it could be, you knowauthenticity.
It could be the number ofpeople who report that they feel
(32:09):
that they could give input orthey can be themselves, or
whatever.
But we can't make it about theresult without making it about
the people and their behavior.
And what's amazing to me isthat in our field, I have an
article that's called OBM.
Where for out, though?
And I thought I was saying OBM.
Where the hell are you?
Apparently where, for out downmeant something else, but
probably think most people likeme somebody correct me on it
(32:30):
probably think that same thing,so I just left it that way.
But I'm like, how are webehavior scientists right and
still using coercive coercion,using these approaches, and not
finding out what's reinforcingto people in the workplace,
because they're going to getmuch more of the bottom line
right, they want to make themoney, but they're going to get
better retention, they're goingto get higher performance, all
(32:50):
these mental health is going tobe better, all these positive
outcomes and the answer I knowwhat it is is that part of it is
that there's an immediatereinforcement reinforcer for
engaging this kind of behaviorbecause they get immediate
change right and creating thiskind of culture of
sustainability that's groundedin positive reinforcement.
It's probably going to take aminute to build that stuff up,
but when you have an authenticleader and you, you involve your
(33:13):
stakeholders with it, you heartheir feedback and then they end
up authoring it, they own it.
You become a team, and a teamthat will keep going.
Now I will say the one, one ofthe situations that I've seen
where the leaders have workedaround.
This is where they pay people alot of money right Now, for
example, you see this maybe inthe corporate world, where, in
(33:37):
stock markets, where stockbrokers you know that culture is
horrible man, I've heardterrible stories and you know
they're like stepping on theirown mom's back to make a buck,
you know, and they're alsotaking like a lot of abuse and
but they're doing it in the nameof the buck, right, because
that reinforcement is sopowerful that you know they're
(33:59):
going to engage in thosebehaviors.
And I see people I call itgolden handcuffs.
I've seen people making a waymore money than they would
normally make somewhere else,and of course I don't blame them
, right, because they have afamily and they won't have this
opportunity to make this kind ofmoney somewhere else, and and
so they end up.
I don't want to say it'sselling their soul, it's
something else, because I don'tthat suggests like they're bad
(34:20):
people or something like that,but because I don't have it's a
good, I think.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I think good people sell their souls.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, well, I think, when they, I think they become,
I feel, I think, I think in thelong run it erodes them and they
look back, they feel bad.
But now they're caught becausetheir whole lifestyle is
maintained by this income.
And now where are they going togo?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
I think you know and being beingin a leadership seat like
people will have no idea, paulywhat it feels like to receive
feedback difficult, hardfeedback to be checked okay,
checked by people that you pay,but it is in complete honesty.
(35:03):
It takes so much humility, andnot only people that you pay,
but people that you have been inthis industry for 17 years, and
it's the people that I meetwho've been in the industry
anywhere half as long as I have.
They're in lateral positions tome or they're doing other things
in the field, but the peoplethat I employ are like zero to
(35:25):
five years and they have thisvantage point that is on the
ground, and it's an importantvantage point because you get to
see up close, you're in it,you're experiencing it, and
that's important because I wantto know how people experience
the company.
Human experience is extremelyimportant to me in my personal
life and also in my professionallife, but they don't have the
perspective taking because theycan't fathom what it's like to
(35:47):
sit in my seat right, or even inthe seat adjacent to me or in
the seat below mine, and so it'sthat, the humility that it
takes to still sit and takefeedback, and not only to take
feedback but to solicit it.
So I believe in social validity.
We survey at my company often,very often.
(36:08):
We actually have.
You know when you go to theairport and those little things
with a smiley face was thebathroom.
We have those in our treatmentcenters.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Anyone can just go hit them, and so we have them
for clients and we have them forstaff, and so we want to know.
And then I'll ask you aquestion.
Once you press the littlebutton, it's like, well, why the
smiley face?
Or like, why the mad face?
And then all of these results,they come back and I get to read
them.
Actually, if they are toonegative, in a short period of
time I get an email that alertsme, that tells me why people are
(36:39):
unhappy.
Because I want to know.
But to take the ginormousamounts of feedback and, number
one, be humble about thatfeedback and go OK, this is
someone's perspective andeveryone's perspective is
relevant, because these are thepeople whose perspectives impact
the perspectives of others.
That's number one, right, butalso there are so many
(37:01):
perspectives that it's alsoreally difficult to stay focused
as a leader on whichperspectives we should be.
Like every problem isn't reallyone that warrants immediate
solving and helping people tounderstand, maybe, how we're
going to address a bigger issuebut this is going to fall into
that, or why something has to beon the back burner or why
(37:22):
something maybe is not apriority.
That's really.
And then having the backlash ofthat, that's difficult and I
think leaders have a hard time.
I've had to give reallydifficult feedback to my leaders
, to my CEO at previouscompanies, directly to the CEO.
This is how this makes me feel.
If you do this, this is how thepeople are going to perceive
your actions.
What message do you think thatyou're sending?
(37:43):
I want to know because you areasking me to deliver the message
right, so I need you to answerthat question, and it wasn't met
with welcome.
No one goes oh huh, you knowwhat.
Thank you for giving me aperspective that I could Let me
rework that.
That's not the response thatwe're getting.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
But that's the indicator that you probably not
in the right spot when you getthat kind of response.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, because that's the selling your soul part.
Right, the soul part comes whenyou're at that fork in the road
where you're like I eithergoing to give my CEO this really
difficult feedback and nowpotentially they hate me, or
maybe I'm passed up foropportunities, especially being
a black woman.
I'm all ready a black woman.
I'm at the table, but theyreally don't want me to speak
(38:27):
unless I'm spoken to.
So now I have to raise my handand say something that nobody I
answer a question or ask aquestion nobody asked me to
bring to the table, and I haveto hope that it doesn't end in
retaliation.
You know, and unfortunately forme, it did.
But what I have, you know, tohold on to is I understand how
(38:48):
important it is as a leadersitting in that seat, to be able
to hear and see and really askfor, request, the perspectives
of others, so that I can seemyself and my organization
through their eyes, to make sureand not everything is like
valid right.
Some stuff is focused, but youknow what?
Because I measure, because Ican be accountable only to what
(39:08):
I need to be accountable to.
Hey, I have data that actuallybacks up that what you're saying
is really, truly yourperception, but that's not
actually the facts.
That's not the truth, right,that's not.
That's maybe how you're seeingit and we can do what we can to
try to mitigate that, but wehave data that shows that 95
percent of everybody else isseeing it.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
It's so powerful to have that stuff because the data
does talking and you can.
I are actually doing a talk, soI don't want to give it way too
much of my stuff for Stone Soupfor called Tough Talks coming
up, because you do need tounderstand how to have tough
talks.
As you were speaking about this, I thought you know.
You know the great thing isthat positive reinforcement
should be leveraged to go everydirection right, and the higher
(39:48):
up the totem pole you are on inthe org chart, the less likely
you're getting in touch withpositive reinforcement from
people, right.
So we need to teach people toremember to positively reinforce
up.
Your leaders are probably doinga lot of good things, right?
So let them know what they'redoing well.
Use behavior, specific praise,tell them what they're doing,
how it's the impact of it, right.
So do that stuff.
(40:09):
So that way, when you do gothat, when feedback they don't
see you as that person right,that's always coming to them
with problems.
We'd all feel that way ifthat's the problem.
Now to your point.
Now you have to look forpatterns of responses.
You can't just like looking foran isolated response, although
sometimes somebody might have areally good point oh great, I
need to look more deeply into it, but the patterns of responses,
(40:31):
that we need to look, dig moredeeply into, find out well,
what's at the root of it and isit legitimate or not.
I think that's very important.
And finally, I want to say that, with that data because you're
getting data about certain,about that that's linked to
other employees, managers,supervisors, et cetera, et
cetera One of the problems thatI see way too often is that data
(40:51):
is using to beat people up andit should be using to coach them
, to help them grow right.
So we need to, and that's whysocial validity is so important.
I really believe in these 360degree surveys where we're just
getting a gauge, so people toyour point, we can see what
their perspective is, andcertainly there's bias, there's
things that will impact it.
But when you get data over time, you get to see norms and you
(41:13):
get to see ripple effects andthose things and figure out.
All right, what do we want tofocus on?
And we can help people tobetter, be better, preserve
their behavior and the impact ofit on the environment and the
employees, being a critical, themost critical part of that
environment for producing valuedoutcomes for the organization.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah, I agree.
I think it's interesting toobecause there's this generation,
this generational gap, which Ihate to say that, because I feel
like I'm about 25 years old inmy heart and so to see that
there are like 25 year olds thatI just have a really hard time
getting on the same page withit's interesting because I
didn't think I had come that far.
But what data also helps to dois it informs me regularly about
(41:57):
what matters to the currentworkforce, because I can list
what's going to make athriveable workspace for me.
Based on my experiences, basedon how I was raised, based on my
generation and how we did workwhen I was in the field, we
overall intrinsically motivated.
It was nice if our boss told usthat we did a good job, right,
it was nice if we got a bonus,but like we were just there and
(42:19):
then we have a healthycompetition between us and like
other behavior analysts, youknow, or we'd get together and
collaborate on like doingsomething really cool.
Now their motivations are very,very different.
Than you know, the 20 to 25year olds of today are motivated
by very different things thanwhat we were motivated by, and
(42:40):
so it's been kind of a honestlya tough pill to swallow because
I'm like you know.
I believe that everyone shoulddo 100% of their job in exchange
for 100% of their paycheck.
Matching law right, likematching, it should just match.
But these people, they wantother things.
They want to feel, they want tobe a part of something bigger
than them.
You know they want to worksmarter, not harder.
(43:02):
You know they want to beinnovative, they want to feel
like they can create.
And so, having people tell youwhat matters to them and, like
you said, taking that data andgoing well, what patterns are we
seeing in their responses?
Even if I disagree with them orI'm like I don't truly
understand that, I'm notmotivated by that, seeing that
large groups within myorganization are going this
(43:23):
direction.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
That's the reinforcement, those are the
reinforce.
So what can we do to providethat kind of you know, that kind
of environment for you?
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah, yeah, because because truly, I realized I
thought I knew, but there are somany things about the current
workforce that I just did notknow and I still struggle to
understand and that I mightdeeply disagree with, but it
really takes again that humilityto go.
You know what?
This is the direction we'regoing.
This is what the people want inorder to stop the turnover.
(43:53):
They want to be seen for whatmatters to them right now.
There's a lot of like socialjustice things going on.
There's a lot of mental health.
You know, people are gettingmore comfortable talking about
how their work impacts theirmental health, and so that
wasn't something we were allowedto talk about at work when, I
was coming up in the field.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
I'm glad that all that says being talked about now
.
I'm a social worker, you know.
I started off with that, so Ibelieve in all that.
I feel like the science isgetting sucked in and like a
negative way to some of thisstuff.
You know, the science in myeyes is the science.
We need to leverage it to helppeople, you know.
But anyways, that justtriggered me for a second with
some stuff that's been going on.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah, you know, and we have to figure out how to get
the metrics met right, becausewe do have to build thriveable.
You use the word sustainable,you know, and sustainability
sometimes I wonder like, is this, if you add this model, is the
current model a sustainablemodel for this industry?
And in many ways it's not.
Unless you're doing that, likeyou know, money crazed, rapid
(44:50):
growth, nothing else really.
The human approach doesn'treally feel sustainable and
that's what I think that's.
That fork in the road thatleaders are coming to is like
that human centered approach isreally hard to maintain on the
financial side.
Keep the doors open.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Well, I think that, thank goodness, you have
organizational behaviormanagement as your toolbox,
because it's an adaptable systemand that's the thing right.
We need to have environmentsthat are going to be adaptable
and if you have good measurement, feedback loops and they're
tight enough, you can respond toissues right and but into your
point, you need to have metricsfor all these different things
(45:26):
and they need to be on a nicedashboard, need to be looking at
them and figuring out the whyor reinforcing what's going in
the right direction, and that'swhat good behavior analysts do.
So, man portion, we're gettingup to the hour here and this has
been like a part of amasterclass for leadership.
I feel like you know leadershipand a lot of fun.
I mean, we really I got tothank Nick again for for
(45:47):
connecting us, because we arejust so aligned with our
thoughts and our passions andour values with this kind of
stuff.
So I want to have you back onagain at some point, because I
was like shooting the shit withmy buddy.
You know I mean.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Oh, I can talk shit all day.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Well, we definitely will.
Now, if, if somebody wanted toreach out to you for anything,
you know what would be, and I'mjust going to ask you if you can
send me something for the shownotes and I'll pop it in there,
you know, but what would be thebest way to get in touch with
you?
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Best way to get in touch with me is email.
I'm not opposed to sharing myemail.
Maybe one day I'll beoverwhelmed in my inbox, but you
can also share LinkedIn if youwant.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
That's better oh.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
LinkedIn is great as well.
I'm bad on LinkedIn.
The thing is, I hate to tellpeople that this is a good way
to get in touch with me, andthen I'm like I'm really bad on
LinkedIn.
I'm really good on Instagram atMiss Portia M-I-S-S-P-O-R-T-I-A.
I'm super good on there, but myemail is really.
I get a lot of people that justdrop into my email inbox and go
(46:49):
hey, I had a question aboutthis or that, so my email is
pjames at behaviorgeniuscom.
I can be.
I check my email all day, everyday, so that's that's probably
the easiest way to get in touchwith me between that and
Instagram, which is where I havemy fun.
I entertain fun conversations.
If it needs to get serious, Ischedule Zoom calls with people
(47:12):
and jump into email, but that'sreally where people can really
connect with who I am and whatI'm doing on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Okay, awesome.
It's been a real pleasurechatting with you and we will
definitely be having you onsometime in the near future.
Thanks, Portia.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I would love that.
Thank you, Polly.
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