May 12, 2025 • 57 mins
Master the art of leadership during radical change in this insightful episode featuring Bob Tipton, CEO and Principal Change Architect at Team Tipton, and special guest Mike Peterson, a former VP of HR and IT, and Founder of Apex Partners. Both Bob and Mike are published authors in leadership.
🚀 We dive deep into the challenges leaders face in times of disruption and share actionable tools to lead with confidence, clarity, and empathy.Â
Bob shares invaluable strategies for effective communication, including his powerful 90-second rule, tips for creating relevance in messaging, and the importance of psychological safety. You'll discover how to shift from reactionary decision-making to mindful leadership, helping your team navigate uncertainty with trust and transparency. Plus, Mike adds his unique perspective on building trust, fostering transparent communication, and the role of empathy in leadership.Â
This episode is packed with real-life lessons, humor, and practical advice to help leaders elevate their mindset and strategies. Whether you're navigating career transitions, leading through disruption, or simply looking to improve your leadership game, this session is for you.Â
Join the conversation and take your leadership journey to the next level. Don’t miss this engaging discussion that’s sure to inspire and empower leaders at every stage. Listen now and be part of the change!
Register for Bob's Webinar HERE
Get Mike's Book Leading in the Age of Digital Disruption HERE
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joe Miller (00:00):
Hey, welcome back, everybody.
I'm back in the studio herewith Bob Tipton.
I should say the virtual studiotalking about navigating times
of radical change.
Bob, we want to talk aboutcommunications today to start
off, don't we?
Bob Tipton (00:14):
Yeah, that's the primary topic for today is
finding ways to be able tocommunicate effectively during
times of radical change.
What I find is that we talkedabout this in the first episode
also is that When things arechallenging, we tend to find
ourselves adrenalized, and ourphysiology, our brain chemistry
(00:35):
only gives us a limited numberof choices at that point.
Joe Miller (00:39):
Let's pause just a second and welcome Mike Peterson
into the conversation.
Hello.
Hey, Mike.
I'm glad you could make ittoday.
Mike is a former VP of HR andIT.
And he and I have been in acommon network together for a
number of years.
And also a published author andhas recently published a book
(01:00):
on leadership.
Maybe we'll touch on that laterif it ties in.
But welcome in, Mike.
Go ahead, Bob.
Sorry to interrupt the flow.
Teeing up the whole topic fortoday of starting with
communications and how tocommunicate in this challenging
environment.
Bob Tipton (01:17):
Thanks, Joe.
And hello, Mike.
Nice to meet you.
Mike Peterson (01:19):
Nice to meet you, too.
Bob Tipton (01:22):
So I'm coming to you from the Denver area.
I don't know where you are,Mike.
I know where Joe is.
He's like in Florida, right?
I'm
Mike Peterson (01:28):
in Northwest Arkansas.
Bob Tipton (01:31):
Northwest Arkansas.
A lot of time in Fort Smith.
Just down the road.
Northwest Arkansas isbeautiful.
It sure is.
Really special part of thecountry.
Anyway.
Yeah, we were talking aboutthis idea that when things are
hard, when things arechallenging and difficult, And
we find ourselves with a wholebunch of adrenaline that's been
(01:53):
pumped into our body.
We don't have a lot ofexecutive function available.
We basically have fight,flight, or freeze, and that
doesn't help when it comes tocommunicating effectively,
usually.
So, yeah, that's the topic fortoday, is to how do we bring
better tools and approaches whenit comes to communicating?
So, I guess the first thing Iwant to put out there is
(02:16):
leaders...
often find themselvesnavigating challenging
situations just like the peoplethat they're leading.
But we have a specialrelationship, obligations, kind
of a big word, obligation, to beable to quell some of our own
concerns and our own nervousnessand uncertainty and be able to
(02:37):
help those around us.
So one of the first things thatI like to think about before we
start communicating is are wein the right mindset to do so?
And that right mindset isrequires sometimes just taking a
deep breath and relaxing alittle bit, giving yourself a
moment.
In fact, I've got three kind ofrules about answering emails or
(02:58):
communicating.
So if it's something that'sreally important, I mean, it's
like life-changing potentially.
I have a 48-hour rule.
I'm not going to say anythinguntil I sleep on it twice.
Then I have an hour rule.
If it's something that lookslike it's something that's
significant, really have to dealwith it.
I'll still wait an hour to makesure that I've actually
(03:19):
metabolized my adrenaline.
And then if it's somethingthat's on fire actually has to
happen immediately, I still have90 seconds.
So this knee-jerk reaction tocommunicate immediately when
somebody says something, I'llalways wait at least a minute
and a half.
And I get a mental timer going.
(03:41):
The good news about that isafter 90 seconds, the adrenaline
actually starts to beconverted.
So that's first.
Are we in the right mindset tocommunicate?
Have you ever received aflaming email from somebody that
are just full of concern, fullof all kinds of things?
Never.
Never gotten one of those, haveyou?
Oh, my God.
(04:02):
Our natural reaction is tocommunicate immediately.
That's where road rage comesfrom, too.
It's an immediate triggeredresponse based on...
a lack of 90 seconds ofwaiting.
So that's first.
Are we in the right mindset tocommunicate?
That's necessary.
And then from that, when we'relooking at things of radical
(04:26):
change, the first things wetalked about, is it even real?
Is it something that belongs tome?
And I think one of the thingswe didn't talk about a lot in
the first episode is this ideaof what if I'm wrong about this?
You know, we find ourselves inecho chambers.
We've talked about that a fairamount.
We find ourselves victims,quote unquote, of algorithms and
(04:49):
social media and all thedifferent things that come
across our newsfeed.
We're not really victims.
We're choosing that.
It's just we kind of getreinforced.
We find ourselves in some casesaddicted, I guess, to that sort
of a thing.
But what if we're wrong aboutit?
So one of my favorite things tobring forward, well, two
things, I guess.
(05:09):
One, a marvelous TED Talk from2011.
Catherine Scholes had a TEDTalk on something called On
Being Wrong.
She's actually a researcherthat looked into the subject.
And she started her TED Talkwith this story.
See if I get it right.
I'm not sure if I get itcompletely right, but you get
(05:30):
the gist of it.
She and a traveling companionwere driving across the United
States and they kept seeing thisweird symbol.
They thought, why do we keepseeing this Chinese or Korean or
Japanese symbol on the signs?
And after a while, one of themfinally decided to look it up to
see what it actually was.
And it wasn't this Chinesekanji symbol.
It was a picnic table.
(05:52):
It was a symbol for campground.
So just the context wascompletely wrong in what they
thought they were seeing.
Totally different.
And then she asked the questionof the audience.
She said, how does it feel whenyou're wrong?
So, Mike, Joe, how does it feelwhen you're wrong?
Joe Miller (06:11):
It's a little bit embarrassing, I think, because
it reveals back to thatknee-jerk response and maybe
from I've built context basedupon maybe the echo chamber that
I've been in or the paradigms Iwas holding.
Bob Tipton (06:26):
Right.
Except you didn't ask her thequestion that I asked.
This is what she said.
The question that you asked ishow does it feel when you
realize you're wrong?
How does it feel when you'rewrong?
It feels like nothing or itfeels like you're right.
You don't know.
So that's a little bit to addto the mix of what we talked
(06:49):
about in the first installmentis this idea of my source is
even accurate.
Who paid for that research?
What, Are they looking for thestatistics?
What things are they comparing?
You want to do something funwith Copilot or ChatGBT?
Give it this prompt.
Say, find me a ridiculouscorrelation.
(07:09):
So I'll butcher this.
This isn't exactly right, butit sounds right or similar.
The number of people that diefrom poisonous spider bites
every year correlates to thenumber of movies that Nick Cage
is in every year.
The graph looks exactly thesame, but it's ridiculous.
So it's back to this idea,first of all, am I right about
(07:31):
what I'm about to communicate?
How much time do we actuallyspend checking sources?
Mike Peterson (07:38):
Capita cheese consumption in the U.S.
is strongly correlated with thenumber of people who died by
being tangled in theirbedsheets.
Bob Tipton (07:46):
There you go.
It makes no sense, but itcorrelates.
Yeah.
And a lot of the stuff that wesee, Mike, when it comes to
messaging has that kind ofnonsensical feel to it,
unfortunately.
But we're either not awareenough or we don't care enough
(08:07):
to be able to check it out.
So, Joe, that's first, I think,when it comes to are we in the
right mindset and do we have theright information to be
communicating?
So from that, if we can say yesto that, I'm in the right
mindset or I think I am.
And I think I'm right becauseI've checked the sources.
Then it gets down to what dopeople actually need when we're
(08:33):
communicating with them?
And the third installment, whenwe get to that, I'm going to
get in more specific behaviorsfrom a leadership perspective.
So I'm not going to get into somuch of that right now.
This is going to feel a littlebit more like training.
Sorry, not sorry.
But a couple of tools that arereally important.
when it comes to communicatingeffectively.
And the first one I want totalk about is relevance theory.
(08:55):
Have either of you heard ofrelevance theory before?
Not
Mike Peterson (08:59):
ringing any bells.
Joe Miller (09:00):
No.
Bob Tipton (09:01):
So what I find is many of those that are in
technical professions, and Istarted that way.
I was an IT person for many,many years.
Didn't spend much time in thehumanities section of the
university before we got ourdegree and started working.
I find that with doctors andlawyers and engineers.
There's not a lot of timespent.
(09:22):
Maybe one mandatorycommunications class you had
when you were a freshman, butthat was it.
And what we tend to believe,there's a myth about
communication, and that iseverybody should find everything
that I say to be relevant.
It's a very personal,individual way of looking at
things.
And in reality, it's not true.
(09:44):
A, not everybody cares aboutwhat we have to say, and B, B,
it's the listener that gets todecide whether this is relevant
or not.
So as we're sitting herepontificating about stuff,
dealing with times of radicalchange, those that are listening
to this get to decide whetherit's relevant or not and whether
they want to pay attention toit or not.
(10:05):
It's not what we want to say aswe sit here.
So imagine a Venn diagram.
The Venn diagram on one circle,it's what you want to say.
The other circle is what theywant to hear.
And the overlap is whererelevance exists.
Now, driving up relevance,there's actually some things to
help.
And this is what this idea ofrelevance theory shows up.
(10:27):
So two pieces, and I'm warningyou, you have to imagine a
little bit of a math problem inyour mind here.
So I don't know how good youare at that, but I'm going to
ask you to imagine a bit of amath problem.
So relevance theory is a simplecomputation that It's
contextual effects divided byprocessing effort.
(10:48):
And what I mean by contextualeffects is how quickly am I able
to connect this to somethingthat I already know.
So a couple of weeks ago now, Iwas in a workshop with some
real live engineers, waterengineers, and they're looking
to build a sophisticated watertreatment plant to get rid of
forever chemicals.
(11:08):
And one of the things I knowhaving worked in the water
industry treatment industry,although I'm not an engineer,
but I work in that industry alot.
There's a term calledflocculation.
Joe, Mike, have you ever heardthe term flocculation before?
Joe Miller (11:23):
No, but I'm holding my tongue trying not to use my
chemistry background toextrapolate a potential meaning.
So I'm holding it.
Bob Tipton (11:31):
Fair enough.
No, maybe you've got backgroundhere that you can understand a
bit about what that meansbecause of your training and
your background.
Most people have no flip anidea of what flocculation means.
So there was a very seniorwater engineer in the room and I
was sharing a slide that hadthis math formula processing or
(11:52):
contextual effects divided byprocessing effort.
And I said, can you help mewith the term flocculation so I
can get it quickly?
He said, all right.
It's like making ice cream.
I thought, okay, cool.
No pun intended.
Making ice cream.
What does that mean?
Well, you start with thisliquid with all sorts of stuff
in it.
And what you want to do throughthis paddle that is stirring in
(12:15):
the ice cream is you want tocreate some glob.
You want to make something kindof come together.
I thought, okay, I get that.
That's what flocculation is.
Yeah, it's about takingparticulates.
It's about taking things thatare floating in the water.
And you want to attract them toeach other through agitation.
And there's some chemicals tomake that possible.
(12:38):
So what you do is basicallycreate globs of stuff.
I thought, great.
Now I have a really clearunderstanding of what
flocculation is because I knowhow ice cream is made.
So the contextual effects forme were off the chart.
It's like I get it right away.
And by the way, if you everwatch drinking water being made,
the last step is flocculation.
(12:59):
And what they do is they takeall the particulates and so on
in the water and create thesenasty looking globs of stuff
that are heavier than the water.
They float to the bottom,they're scraped off, and the
finished water is ready to besent into the distribution
system.
So this is an example ofrelevance theory.
Joe Miller (13:19):
In that case, Bob, was the way he explained it.
My first response was heimpacted the denominator.
So he made it easy.
But then in his example, healso, seemed to make it more
relevant to something you couldrelate to.
So he kind of did both at thesame time?
Bob Tipton (13:41):
Yes.
So if you imagine the numeratorand the denominator, what you
want is it to be 10 over 1.
You don't want it to be 1 over10.
When it's 1 over 10, it's likeyou're speaking in a foreign
language.
People have no idea what you'resaying.
It's not relating to them atall.
They don't get it.
So this idea of relevancetheory really is pretty
(14:03):
straightforward, except that notenough leaders use it.
They don't care about it.
It's not something important tothem.
It's like, I held the townhall.
I sent the email.
What the heck?
And they wonder why people arestill running around going, I
don't know what to do now.
I don't know how this affectsme.
I don't know what to make outof this.
(14:24):
So does it take a littlelonger?
Does it require some empathy?
Does it take some effort to beable to see what other people
might need?
Absolutely it does.
So I haven't been a practicingIT professional for a long time.
I still am involved in thestrategy associated with
organizations that oftenincludes technology.
(14:46):
But I haven't been doing it forquite some time.
Do I still have a basicunderstanding of how to
communicate things to people?
I think so.
Can I help?
In fact, I don't know who I wastalking to.
Maybe it was you, Joe.
I don't know who I was talkingto, but I'm a former CTO and
former CIO, and I discoveredthat people still have trouble
(15:09):
communicating the strategicvalue of IT with their
organizations.
It was us.
We had
Joe Miller (15:14):
a sidebar, I think, before the first session on this
topic, yeah.
Bob Tipton (15:22):
It was us.
I was hoping that you all hadit figured out.
I really did.
Joe Miller (15:29):
It's one of the most common, and Mike, you'll relate
because we touch on this in ourcommunities.
It's one of the most commonthings that comes up, especially
in people a little bit morejunior than CIO, but still there
too.
And that is, how do I get aseat at the table?
So it's related to that.
In other words- Why aren'tpeople listening to what I'm
(15:52):
saying?
Why am I not having influence?
Bob Tipton (15:57):
Maybe you're not making it relevant for them.
Exactly.
Maybe you're making it verydifficult for them to understand
because they don't get thenuances of cybersecurity.
They don't get the nuances ofrisk when it comes to artificial
intelligence.
They don't get that.
What they get instead is thememe that somebody posted on
Facebook or Instagram the daybefore.
(16:18):
They're getting something outof their echo chamber.
They're not getting the actualfacts in such a way that they
can understand it.
So anyway, I go back, gosh,this has got to be 25 years ago
or more, developing websites.
And the tool we used back then,where I think they're probably
still using something like this,is called Personas and Journey
Maps.
(16:38):
I don't know if you're usingany of those.
Information architecture andwho are we talking to?
Well, I've translated that intoteam dynamics using that same
tool now for decades, but in anon-IT kind of capacity because
it's the same issue.
We don't spend enough timeunderstanding who we're
communicating with and what theyneed, what their pain points
(17:01):
are, how they view the world,what their actions and behaviors
are.
So there's a really specificthing that we can use,
especially for atechnology-related audience,
It's not anything new.
It's been around for decades,but we don't use it enough.
How come do you think, whydon't we use things like
personas and journey mapsenough?
Mike Peterson (17:24):
Uh, I think I just answered a, a question like
that.
So thank you for reminding me.
And I, you know, one of theanswers that I came across is,
is just, um, time, you know, so,so many people are, um, They
feel overburdened with work.
They're playing catch up anddoing things the right way takes
(17:49):
a lot of time.
And so a lot of people, from myperspective, at least know what
the right way is.
They just don't necessarilywant to take the time to do it
the right way.
And I think...
In many ways, those journeymaps are a great example because
they've been around for so longas kind of a best practice that
(18:11):
it started to become like,well, I know what needs to be
done.
I know how to do it.
So I'm just going to skip theprocess and go right to some
assumptions about what I think Iknow because it's going to save
me a lot of time.
Until it doesn't, right?
Exactly.
Bob Tipton (18:28):
Yeah.
Again, going back to my days inIT, it was, why do you keep
giving me the things I ask foras opposed to the things I need?
I don't know how many times Iheard that question from users.
It's like, I know I asked forthis, but it's not what I really
need.
So taking the time tounderstand how you actually
interact with them.
I mean, I go back now 30 yearsago, there's a book written
(18:48):
called Moments of Truth by JanKarlsson.
He was the former CEO of SASAirlines.
And SAS, the Scandinavianairline, they were horrible.
I mean, they had some of theworst customer service
imaginable, maybe worse thanimaginable.
And he came in and he decidedhe was going to turn that
airline around.
And what he came up with wasevery interaction that we have
(19:11):
with a customer, no matter whatit was, from a business card to
a face-to-face meeting, whateverit might be, is a moment of
truth.
And what does the customer comeaway with as it relates to an
experience?
So what it forced hisleadership team and ultimately
the whole organization to focuson is who's in front of me?
What do they need?
(19:31):
What are they looking for?
What do they actually want?
And it fundamentallytransformed the airline.
I don't know if it's any goodanymore, but at the time it was
a fundamental transformation.
So this whole idea of empathy.
Oh, my gosh.
There are some in the worldthat talk about empathy as a
waste of time.
Or.
a marker of weakness.
(19:53):
I am not one of them.
I think empathy is a superpowerin the year 2025 and beyond,
not taken to an extreme, right?
So that's part of what wetalked about in the first
installment, Joe, is I'm notgoing to pick up your burden
just because it's sitting theretelling me I should pick it up.
I can be empathetic and I canbe compassionately detached and
know that you need to do yourown growth and you need to go
(20:15):
through your own suffering,quote unquote.
The hard thing with being aparent is you have to let your
kids grow.
If you don't, you're going towind up taking care of them for
their whole life.
So empathy, in my mind, is asuperpower.
And I have a very simpledefinition of empathy that goes
(20:35):
beyond walking a mile in someoneelse's shoes, which is the way
most people think about it.
Let's try this one on for size.
I hear your lived experienceand I believe it.
Not my job to judge it,criticize it.
put it in the category of rightor wrong, I believe that you
believe that.
And that's a great platform tobuild communication using
(20:58):
another tool if you're ready tomove on to something that still
feels a bit like training.
Joe Miller (21:03):
If I could, I wanted to just swing back a little
bit.
It seems to me, I'm correlatinghere, that when Mike was saying
that people know what the rightthing is to do, but it feels
like too much of a heavy liftbased upon time.
And I would also insert thepressure that they're under at
(21:25):
the moment to deliver.
Then they don't take that path.
Likewise, and I think you sortof did a hat tip to this, Bob,
when you said they think it'sright until it's wrong.
It really gets into this pointof, do you have the space to
look at the long view?
Or do you feel...
(21:47):
Like you are reactingconstantly, which to me
correlates and ties back to thisadrenalized state that so many
of us are in.
And I think about a technologyleader, you know, most
technology leaders have aservice part of what they do.
They have hopefully people whoare helping them take care of
(22:09):
the services that support theorganization.
You know, is the email alwaysrunning, et cetera.
If there's a problem, I mean,They're responding constantly to
issues, their organization is.
So there's a sense or a beliefin this adrenalized state, I
don't have time to deal with theright thing to do because I
(22:33):
have to respond.
I'm not saying it's true.
I'm just saying that longerview seems expensive, going back
to your formula.
It seems costly to me as theperson delivering the message.
So I just want to bypass it.
So the question that I wouldlay on the table, and we can get
(22:58):
to this later, is how do youhelp people put the practices in
the place to de-adrenalizethemselves so they can do the
right thing?
First, you've got to have thetools, and that's part of what
you're delivering here.
But I think it's also importantto talk about Assuming I have
the tools, how do I enable theright practices and habits and
(23:22):
awareness to utilize those
Bob Tipton (23:24):
tools?
Again, back to what we talkedabout in the first installment,
there are three levels ofawareness.
And the levels of awarenesscome with experience.
They come with time.
And one of the first thingsabout getting out of being
adrenalized is realizing thatit's possible to be so.
But that is a choice.
(23:46):
It's not an inevitability.
We are completely in control ofhow we react to everything.
Some things, they're the fight,flight, or freeze because
nature puts it in.
If you see a bear, you probablydecide it's time to do
something, although we tend todo the wrong thing.
We run away from the bear.
(24:06):
The bear is faster than youare.
And it also primes its instinctto chase prey.
So one of the better things todo is to become large and loud.
You have a better chance ofsurviving an encounter with a
bear if you do those as opposedto running away from it.
So that comes with sometraining.
But first of all, Joe, how manytimes do we actually find
(24:27):
ourselves encountering a bear inour lives?
Once, I remember as a kid, wewere camping at Yellowstone.
We had a bear encounter.
What did my father do?
He decided to throw rocks atthe bears.
We actually hit one on the noseand the bear decided that that
was better to run away than tocome back.
(24:47):
But I could have beenfatherless when I was about
eight.
My father was throwing rocks atthe bears.
Anyway, enough about mypersonal life.
It's a matter of being awarethat the choice is possible.
And that comes with experience.
So I believe the more gray hairwe earn, the more trips around
the sun we have, Joe, the morewe realize that sometimes the
(25:08):
expense up front is worth it.
And It's also a choice throughawareness that I don't have to
respond to everything.
As I said a little while ago,I've got these three timers that
go off about things.
I will not respond immediatelyto anything unless I'm in a
plane crash and a flightattendant tells me to get off
the plane.
I've got 90 seconds to do thator I'll die.
(25:29):
Okay, I won't wait 90 secondsto see how I feel about what he
or she is saying.
So to me, it's a cop-out tosay, I constantly have to
respond to things.
That's not true.
That's a choice.
Each thing that comes along,you have the ability to say, I'm
going to take a deep breath atleast.
So these three levels ofawareness we talked about, the
(25:52):
first level of awareness is,crap, I just did what I always
do.
I responded.
But you realize it sometimeafter the fact.
There's a teachable moment foryou at that point to say, do I
want to do that next time?
But it's an awareness to say,I've just done what I've always
done.
So I'll give you an example.
Imagine you're on a buffet on acruise and the food is
(26:16):
available 24-7 and it's amazingfood.
And what you're trying to do inyour life is to get your A1C
down.
You're trying to get away frombeing pre-diabetic and you're
trying to eat healthier.
What do we do when we see abuffet?
We load up the plate becausesomewhere inside of our
(26:36):
alligator brain, it's like we'renever going to eat again.
Every time we load up theplate, it's a choice.
So the second level ofawareness is in the middle of
loading your plate.
You look at it and say, I'm notgoing to eat this in three
meals.
I don't need this number ofcarbs for three days.
And you can decide to quitloading your plate.
So you have a choice in themiddle of it.
(26:58):
And the third is I'm about toget a plate and go through the
line.
I'm going to pick things thatfit my priorities.
So the tool that I'm talkingabout here, Joe, is it's an
intentional disruption to theautomatic pilot that we find
ourselves on.
It's the echo chamber stuffthat we've talked about so much.
(27:19):
Oh, okay.
Maybe I'm the only one thatfeels this way.
I don't know.
We'll find out.
Maybe some listeners are givingup at this point.
But we are in control.
We can put our hands on thewheel and decide what our
actions will be.
And if we choose to respondconstantly to things, we play
(27:40):
whack-a-mole all day long,that's a choice.
Joe Miller (27:43):
Even if you don't think it is.
Correct.
Because you're conditioned.
You're conditioned.
And it's funny because thatrelates to some of the other
things we discussed in the firstepisode about all the messaging
we get externally.
I find that a lot of times inthis particular example, leaders
(28:03):
tend to keep reinforcing theirown messages back to themselves
and take away their agency tomake a choice in the moment,
which gets back to somethingelse.
I had someone close to meinteract with me based upon the
first episode, asked me somequestions about how do I
evaluate the messaging that'sout there.
(28:26):
And I said, well, One thing Ido is kind of use this Columbo
technique where I basically askthe person delivering the
message to me, or if I'm gettingit somewhere, I just basically
say, what exactly are yousaying?
And then the second questionthat fits in here is, how did
(28:48):
you get to that?
How did you decide that?
How did you decide that that istrue?
which also relates to whatyou've been saying about
challenging these things, butalso is the belief that I have,
are the tapes that I'm runningthrough my own brain actually
true?
Bob Tipton (29:08):
Correct.
Yeah, one of my favoriteexamples of that, Joe, is who
said the line, Luke, I am yourfather?
The answer is nobody.
The line does not exist in themovie.
But we've heard it repeatedover and over and over again, so
much that we believe it's true,but it isn't.
(29:28):
The actual line is, no, I amyour father.
Not Luke, I am your father.
So it's one of those simpleexamples that we look at and
say, well, what's the foundationfor my belief?
Or what do I think about this?
Is it true?
Back to the first thing wetalked about in this installment
(29:49):
is, are you in the right frameof mind to communicate?
So again, cop out, what a 80sword or a 70s word, but it's
this idea that I just simplygive up my responsibility in the
matter and I am reacting likewhack-a-mole.
Well, maybe get your chainsawout and cut the mole off so you
(30:10):
never see it come off or come upand down through the hole.
Maybe it's nothing.
So people get good, in fact,really good at knowing where
your buttons are.
especially children and a lotof our employees, they know
exactly how to make us react.
What if we had, you know, thereact button that we have on our
chest here where people walk upand push the react button.
(30:32):
What if we had no wiring behindthe button?
Well, it's not going to be usedfor a long.
Would it frustrate the personthat's pushing the button?
Yeah.
The first couple of times.
Yeah.
But no response.
None.
I tried that with my youngerdaughter.
Oh, she got mad.
It's
Mike Peterson (30:51):
a very powerful tool for sure.
It
Bob Tipton (30:53):
really worked.
So those are a couple of ideas,Joe.
So the nice segue here is intoanother type of awareness.
And this is based in how weprocess our satisfaction when we
ask a question why and we getan answer back.
So we're constantly processingwhy, especially in times of
(31:15):
radical change.
It's just, what's going on?
Why is this happening?
So The answers that we get backare different, or we need
different answers based on whowe are.
So there's a level of awarenesswhen it comes to who are you,
and then there's a level ofawareness about who you're
communicating with.
(31:35):
And if you're communicatingwith an individual, it's easier.
If you're communicating with alarge group, it's important to
communicate in all four ways.
There's four elements in thequadrant.
dream in two by twos.
My staff laughs at me, but it'strue.
I actually dream in two bytwos.
So, imagine this quadrant.
(31:56):
There's four pieces to it.
There are two ways that we aresatisfied with the answer to the
question why that areemotional.
There are two that are logical.
So, top and bottom.
Left and right now, we have twothat are intrinsic and two that
are extrinsic.
So, And about 25% of thepopulation is spread into each
(32:19):
of the four quadrants.
And yes, there's nothing thatis absolute about it.
It's a model, not a mandate,but it's a model to say kind of
where's home, when we'readrenalized, what do we prefer?
So it's a way to be able tokind of get to what we're going
to default to in terms ofcommunication.
And if we only communicate fromour quadrant, 75% of the
(32:40):
population is unsatisfied.
So it's a realization that mypreferred way of communicating
may not be effective.
And it probably isn't if we'reonly using our own preferred
way, unless the other personwe're talking to has the same
preferred way.
So let me go give you a quicktour of the four different
quadrants, and then we can seehow it might be useful.
(33:02):
So if you're an intrinsiclogical decision maker, you look
at facts.
Data, numbers, amounts,quantities.
And you think the facts shouldspeak for themselves.
I've done the numbers.
I've run the numbers.
I've put it through myspreadsheet.
Out pops the formulaticresponse to say this is the
answer.
That's all we need to do.
(33:23):
That's useful.
But it only speaks implicitlyto 25% of the population.
There are a lot of technicalprofessionals that believe that
that is the capital T way,capital W, the way to
communicate.
It's not enough.
Unless the person you'retalking to on the other side has
exactly the same way of lookingat it, then it's great.
So now if you're an emotionallogical decision maker, what you
(33:47):
look for are external sources.
It's not you running thespreadsheet.
It's what study have you read?
Which PhD?
What research?
What example is available toprove that this actually works?
Data is incredibly important,but I want to see this actually
in action somewhere.
So I look on the outside forvalidation.
(34:09):
There are a whole lot of peoplein technical professions that
do that also.
They want to look at casestudies or research.
I don't know if Gartner isstill around.
They were a big source ofresearch when I was doing it 20,
25 years ago.
In fact, I managed the Gartnerrelationship for the consulting
company that I was the CTO for.
It's incredibly valuable stuff.
(34:30):
Where are you in the magicquadrant?
Joe Miller (34:32):
Magic
Bob Tipton (34:33):
quadrant, the
Joe Miller (34:34):
hype cycle,
Bob Tipton (34:35):
et cetera.
Yeah.
And that's supposed to justifyeverything.
Well, that's only half thepopulation now that we've talked
about.
Only half.
And by the way, that's wheremost communication and
organizational life comes from,is from those two dimensions.
The other two are emotional.
And one of the things thathappens when we're in the middle
(34:56):
of a radical change is we canbecome emotional decision
makers, all of us.
So if you're about to lose yourjob or you have lost your job,
you become an emotional decisionmaker yourself.
And that's one of the mostimportant things during times of
radical change.
If you're a leader, people willquit listening to your data.
They don't care about COBRA.
They don't care about co-pays.
(35:16):
They don't care about anythinguntil they get satisfied with
what this means to me.
And that's the emotional,intrinsic decision maker.
How does this make me appearlike a politician or a
policymaker?
I want to know what this lookslike to me.
And until I have thatsatisfied, I don't care about
(35:37):
your data or your studies.
They're useless to me.
So how does this make meappear?
How does this change my life?
Where am I going to work?
Who do I sit next to?
What's my drive look like?
So technical professionals wholove data and love studies, they
look at this need to tellsomebody how they feel about
something as being useless.
Well, guess what?
When people aren't satisfiedwith the answer to the Question
(36:02):
why that they get over and overagain.
Do they get more quiet?
They do not.
They get louder.
They find different ways todrive you crazy.
So this is another one of theseexamples, Joe, where some time
up front is very well spent tobe able to answer the questions
from the different viewpoints.
All right, so there's a fourthone.
That's where I self-identify.
I'm an emotional, extrinsicdecision maker.
(36:23):
And here's how I get satisfied.
I get satisfied that you'representing me enough right
answers that the best rightanswer is included.
One study, one set of data, oneset of information about how
this affects me isn't enough.
I need to be able to know thatyou've done your homework.
I need to feel that you'vetaken it seriously by looking at
(36:45):
more than one potential answer.
So back to what I said at thebeginning with this particular
tool, if you're talking tosomebody that's just like you,
it's easy.
If you're talking to someonewho isn't like you, like someone
who's at the table, and you asan IT professional want a seat
at the table, and the personthat's at the table wants to
know how this appears to them,Right.
(37:07):
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what I find by using thistool, especially when things are
(37:35):
uncertain, when things arechallenging, when things are a
mess, the more you spend timepreparing your communication
from all four elements in thisquadrant, you'll look like a
communications hero.
You'll be so out of phase witheverybody else, they'll look at
you for the source of the truth.
Confidence that what you'resaying is believable.
(37:57):
It's authentic.
It's true.
So...
When might this tool be useful?
It's like, how about all thetime?
By the way, the type that'smost challenging for us is the
one that's diagonally opposite.
So for me, being an emotional,extrinsic decision maker, it's
the internal logical decisionmaker.
(38:17):
Guess who I was married to for45 years before she passed away.
I miss her logic.
I miss her intrinsicdecision-making because I can
get lost in possibilities.
She used to tell me, can wejust fricking decide where we're
going to go to dinner?
No, I want to look at all thesedifferent options.
(38:38):
I just want to look atdifferent possibilities and
choices.
Can we make a decision, Bob?
So finding ways to be able toglue them together, get the best
of both for the diagonallyopposite, Trying to get all four
wrapped up into yourannouncement memo or your staff
(38:58):
meeting or your town hall.
Joe Miller (39:00):
So that there's connection points in the overall
messaging.
That's right.
Rather than exclusion zonesbecause you haven't made the
effort to form the communicationto touch those different types.
Bob Tipton (39:16):
That's right.
And back to the, I don't havetime.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joe Miller (39:23):
Yeah.
It reminds me of the old totalquality examples, right?
You don't have time to do itright the first time, so you pay
for it in spades just foreveron the back end.
I
Bob Tipton (39:38):
love that one.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great example,Joe.
You know, one of the– you justbrought up a whole other subject
in my mind.
I don't know if this is a weirdnon sequitur, but I'm going to
go there.
Have you ever known a companythat won the Malcolm Baldrige
Award?
Joe Miller (39:54):
Well, I know we were chasing after it when I was at
Syntex years ago.
You know Syntex.
You were one of our providersthere.
So I know we talked about a lotof companies that won it.
But no, I haven't ever beenclose to them, if that was the
question.
Bob Tipton (40:11):
Well, it's like winning the lottery.
Yeah.
How many people, after winningthe lottery, say it's the worst
thing that ever happened tothem?
Most.
It ruined their life.
Well, the same thing withchasing after the Malcolm
Brawlers Award.
The companies that won it, manyof them said it was horrible
afterwards.
Why?
Because there was such pressureto be perfect that they never
(40:33):
brought forward the issues thatneeded to be brought forward.
So that's a whole other subjectfor another day, Joe.
But this idea of psychologicalsafety...
Psychological safety is anothercommunications cultural sort of
a marker that says what needsto be said is said at the time
it needs to be said, to whom itneeds to be said, and the way it
needs to be said.
Using all these tools,relevance theory, using the four
(40:55):
different ways, but we say whatneeds to be said in a plain
way.
That's another thing that wefind really challenging in the
world of, or in the times ofradical change, is people don't
feel safe to communicate thatway.
Joe Miller (41:11):
You know, Bob, I can't resist the temptation to
speak to both of you and Mikeabout the leadership books
you've written.
I remember your book, Jump.
And Mike, it followed a similarformat to your book you just
released.
Why don't you just throw thetitle out there?
I'll let you do it.
Mike Peterson (41:30):
Leading in the Age of Digital Disruption.
Joe Miller (41:33):
Right.
And you used sort of the sameformat where you had a story on
the front end.
And then you had the teaching.
I think, Bob, you did this tooon the back end.
And I'm just kind of curioushow what we're talking about
today connected to some of thescenarios.
Mike, if you don't mind, you'rethinking about your new freshly
(41:57):
minted CEO, which I thought itwas kind of humorous.
It came out of being leadingHR.
Nice one there.
But Some of the dynamics ofbuilding the team and dealing
with the challenges that thecompany went through, I think,
touch on some of these samethemes, do they not?
Mike Peterson (42:17):
100%.
And
Joe Miller (42:18):
then maybe after you're done speaking to that,
maybe, Bob, you could talk abouthow it ties into– Jump was a
number of years ago, but it'sstill on my bookshelf and used.
Mike Peterson (42:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think everything, it's almost
like Bob could have written mybook.
I mean, we're definitely sayingvery similar things with the
order of operations, justslightly different.
You know, I think in leading inthe age of digital disruption,
the three ingredients to successis trust, transparent
(42:54):
communication, andaccountability.
And you know, starting outtalking about empathy.
Empathy is a huge factor ofbuilding trust and psychological
safety is absolutely necessaryto have transparent
(43:14):
communication.
And just like Bob said earlier,I think that it's about saying,
having the tough directconversations when they need to
be had in the best interest ofthe organization, right?
Not necessarily in the bestinterest of Joe or Bob, but
(43:35):
doing what's right for thecompany.
And so you have to build areally thick layer of trust in
an organization to haveemployees feel comfortable
saying what they really feel.
And in those times of radicalchange, which we're certainly in
(43:58):
right now, people tend tooperate in fear rather than in
trust.
And so it takes even moreintentional effort to build that
psychological safety than itdoes in other times.
Definitely.
Bob Tipton (44:16):
Amen.
I'll give you a high five ifyou're sitting next to me.
So here's a virtual high five.
There you go.
Yeah, there's just someprofound truths in the world.
And it sounds like I need toread your book.
I would love to learn yourviewpoint on it.
You know, one of the things Iheard Stephen Covey say a long
(44:38):
time ago, he was beinginterviewed by some gotcha
journalist at an event and theywere trying to catch him.
Well, isn't what you're sayingpretty much the same as
everybody else is saying intheir books?
And he looked him straight inthe face and said, yes.
However, the audience that Irelate to and the way that I say
things is different.
(44:58):
And we're all in the businessor have the mission to be able
to help people realize things.
Not everybody relates to me.
Mike Peterson (45:08):
Yeah.
Well said.
I was talking to publicists inmy publishing journey, and they
would always say, what makesyour book different?
And I'm like, well, it's notreally.
I believe a good leader 100years ago would still be a good
leader today.
It's just evolved slightly towork in this environment of
(45:29):
hyper-technology that we're nowliving in.
But was Abraham Lincoln a goodleader then?
Would he be a good leader now?
I'm not saying he's wrong.
Correct.
Bob Tipton (45:42):
Yeah, there are some basic principles, deep truths
that have been true forever.
That underpins how I thinkabout things.
I've learned a lot of hardlessons from people.
I've got some great teachers.
I wish I could say that I cameup with much of anything on my
own.
It was more how it connects,how it relates.
The primary focus in Jump, Joe,is this idea that things don't
(46:07):
have to take a long time.
Things can happen quickly ifyou let them.
In fact, I believe that theuniverse is conspiring to help
us all the time, and we're theones that get in the way.
We gum up the works.
We put the monkey wrench in thegears.
The natural path to things isto move and move quickly.
(46:27):
So Mike, as you were talkingabout being stuck in fear, any
message in my mind that isdesigned to keep us small and
afraid, it's not a leadershipmessage.
It's a different type ofcommunication.
So we'll get into that, Joe, ina big way in the third
installment here, some of thebehaviors and actions that
(46:48):
leaders can take.
I've got seven things that wewant from our leaders and five
things that we don't.
And one of the things weabsolutely do not need from our
leaders is to be more confusedor to feel like they're
withholding something, like theyknow the answer.
They're just not sharing itwith us.
You want to erode trustimmediately in a time of radical
change?
It's like somebody knows what'sgoing on, but nobody's talking
(47:10):
to us about it.
So.
productivity goes in the dumperat that point because
everybody's talking about whatthey think the withheld
information actually is.
So another point about thistoo, Joe, is that there's a
really practical side tocommunicating effectively.
The organization not only feelsbetter to be part of, but it's
(47:33):
more productive.
So back to this group of waterengineers that I was working
with and talking with them aboutpsychological safety.
You know, the joke aboutintroverted versus an
extroverted engineer.
Have you ever heard that joke?
Is there an
Joe Miller (47:49):
extroverted engineer?
Bob Tipton (47:50):
Yeah, so an introverted engineer stares at
their shoes.
An extroverted engineer staresat somebody
Joe Miller (47:57):
else's.
Bob Tipton (48:00):
That's funny.
It's funny that, yeah, anengineer just hit their head at
this idea, but There's a realpractical side to being able to
make effective decisions fasterif people feel like they are in
a safe environment.
Things cost less and they movefaster.
So yeah, jump is about makingthings happen quickly.
(48:22):
And there's almost like aquantum leap.
That's where the title sort ofcomes from.
It's like an electron movingfrom one orbit to another around
a nucleus without going any,never experiencing the things in
the middle.
So at the right time, frameworkand the right preparation, the
right time spent.
I see it over and over and overand over again with leadership
(48:43):
teams and organizations.
All of a sudden, therealization is incredibly
powerful, profound, and theythink it came out of nowhere.
No, it didn't.
It came from your preparation.
So the need to be able to trustthe sources of information and
A little bit more on Jump, too,is this synergy.
Synergy is waiting to happenconstantly.
(49:04):
One of my favorite examples ofsynergy is a gift bag.
Can you imagine not having agift bag in the world?
I'm old enough to know, maybeyou're too, Joe, when we didn't
have gift bags.
There was wrapping paper andthere were sacks.
And somebody somewhere said,hey, what if we put the two
together and have synergy tocome up with something that
(49:25):
hadn't been invented yet?
What a change that would be forfour-year-old birthday parties.
It's a brilliant idea, but youneeded to allow those
circumstances to be present forthat to be true.
So if your fear gets in theway, if you're constantly
playing whack-a-mole, you'reresponding to everything,
sometimes you have to do that.
I don't want to make it soundlike it's just leave a magic
(49:46):
wand and all that goes away.
But bit by bit, step by step,day by day, week by week, you
can start to erode the number ofthings that you respond to.
You start using the timer tosay, how long am I going to wait
before I react?
You take a deep breath betweenthings and your world changes.
Joe Miller (50:06):
Yeah, going back a little ways when you were giving
your three rules, you know,your timers, I see those as
intentional, upfront actions andpractices to help you maintain
your awareness and yourawareness long arc of your
(50:27):
intention of how you want tolive.
The problem is without thesetools that we're talking about
today and in the last episodeand hopefully a third one,
people tend to operate likethey're in the matrix.
Until Neo realized he was inthe matrix, he couldn't see the
real world.
Bob Tipton (50:49):
Is it real?
Is it
Joe Miller (50:53):
real?
Right.
Bob Tipton (50:54):
Back to the first episode or the first
installment, I actually had apicture that looked like the
matrix, but it wasn't.
You do
Joe Miller (51:01):
have the one trader who decides to go back in the
matrix.
That's an interesting thing totalk about.
I wonder how that applies.
But to your point, your lastpoint, it's fine to take those
quick actions in a calculated,measured way.
(51:23):
not betraying the intention ofhow you want to live.
Bob Tipton (51:27):
Correct.
And that comes with time.
It comes with establishingboundaries and values.
Discipline.
You know, maturity andleadership.
Mature leaders are value-based.
And until you're able toestablish boundaries around your
values, I don't think youreally reach the level of
maturity to call yourself aleader.
(51:48):
You can be a manager, right?
It's a little bit like I worryabout 25-year-old vice
presidents.
They haven't had much lifeexperience to be able to apply
it to the theory that they'reusing.
I remember when I was 25, I wasinsufferable.
So, yeah, exactly.
It's not complicated.
(52:10):
Back to what Mike and I weretalking about a little bit ago.
This is stuff that we know, butdo we practice it, yes or no?
Mike Peterson (52:17):
Not complicated, but I will say difficult.
Because it's often emotional.
Bob Tipton (52:23):
Yeah, especially when, oh, here's another tool.
Maybe it's one of the lastthings we'll talk about today.
But another tool is I stoppedusing the word busy about 15
years ago.
Somebody asks me, how are you?
Busy?
It's like, no, I don't use thatword.
And I haven't used it for 15years.
Why did I take busy out of myvocabulary?
Because I discovered people useit for two reasons, neither one
(52:46):
of which is empowering.
People use it either as ashield, I'm busy, stay away.
Or they use it as a metal, assomething to reward themselves.
Look at me, I'm busy.
In reality, both aredisempowering.
And they also tend to keep usin the echo chamber where busy
(53:09):
is somehow a goal or some way tokeep people away.
So what I say instead of sayingbusy, it's like I've had a
really full day.
I've had a lot going on today,but I'm never busy.
Is that weird?
Am I the only one that feelsthis way?
Could be.
Mike Peterson (53:29):
I love that.
I feel like when I would walkthe halls and ask people how
they're doing, nine times out often, I'd get busy as an answer.
And it doesn't really meananything to They might be busy,
but is the work they're doingvaluable?
(53:49):
Are they doing the right work?
Are they doing the wrong work?
Are they busy making coffee allday?
What does that really evenmean?
Absolutely.
I think it's a practice thatshould be normalized.
Try it today.
Just
Bob Tipton (54:05):
try it for an hour.
Every time the word busy startsto come into your awareness,
just replace it with somethingelse.
It's that kind of a practice,Joe.
Yeah, that's good.
I think that's a simple one.
Joe Miller (54:21):
It is a simple one.
And I also think when you sayit, you're putting yourself in
the place of being a victim andyou're disempowering yourself.
And a word popped up into mymind just a few minutes ago when
you were talking about this,and that is overwhelm.
Often I coach people and say,The term that comes to mind is,
(54:44):
you know, you're in a state ofoverwhelm.
And so you can't live in astate of overwhelm too long
without serious consequences.
Bob Tipton (54:54):
It's one of those weird words.
We get underwhelm andoverwhelm.
But when is the perfect amountof overwhelm?
It is a word, but we just neveruse it.
We always use under or over.
Well,
Joe Miller (55:07):
that's a good point.
Maybe that's a good place tokind of round this out, this
conversation.
Thanks again, Bob.
And Mike, great input.
I appreciate you jumping on.
Give us a little bit of apreview, Bob, for next time.
What are you thinking about?
I think you touched on itearlier, but remind us,
including me.
Bob Tipton (55:23):
Yeah, the primary things are, well, first, getting
to some leadership behaviorsand some actions.
I've got, like I said, seventhings that we really need from
our leaders during times ofcrisis.
of radical change and fivethings we don't.
And often we reward the wrongthings, or we believe that
(55:45):
people that are doing thesethings that are not helpful,
they have ice water in theirveins or they're able to make,
be decisive.
It's like, yeah, but they'reruining things.
They're creating this vortex ofdestruction that somebody else
has to come and fix later on.
Yeah.
They're making hard decisions,but are they good decisions?
So that's, part of what we'lltalk about.
(56:06):
And then summarizing, kind ofpulling it all together and
saying, here's how you might putthis into action.
Thanks,
Joe Miller (56:12):
Bob.
And maybe you could also remindlisteners who may have just
tuned in this episode about yourwebinar and where to find
registration for that.
That really goes into much moredepth, I think.
Bob Tipton (56:26):
Yeah, definitely.
I think as you edit this, Joe,you can pop up something.
I don't know.
It's kind of hard to have youremember a URL on it.
put it out there, butteamtipton.com and then slash
nav-radical-change.
And a couple times a month, Ioffer a webinar that gets into
some detail associated with allof this.
(56:47):
I'd love to have you be part ofthat if you'd like to.
And to the listeners, it'ssomething I do a couple times a
month.
Joe Miller (56:55):
Great.
Any final comments from you,Mike?
Mike Peterson (56:59):
Thank you so much for having me, Bob and Joe.
Really appreciate it.
And sorry I was out sick lastsession, and I'll look forward
to joining the next one as well.
Well, at least
Joe Miller (57:10):
you didn't say
Mike Peterson (57:10):
you were busy.
Joe Miller (57:12):
Yes.
Oh, gosh.
Listen, thank you so much,guys.
Really appreciate it.
Bob, in particular, thanks alot.
Look forward to our nextsession together.
Bob Tipton (57:21):
Thank you, Joe.
Joe Miller (57:22):
All right.
Bye.
Thanks, Mike.
Hey, thanks for joining metoday on Titans of Transition.
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Please check the show notes foradditional information.
Hey, welcome back, everybody.
I'm back in the studio herewith Bob Tipton.
I should say the virtual studiotalking about navigating times
of radical change.
Bob, we want to talk aboutcommunications today to start
off, don't we?
Bob Tipton (00:14):
Yeah, that's the primary topic for today is
finding ways to be able tocommunicate effectively during
times of radical change.
What I find is that we talkedabout this in the first episode
also is that When things arechallenging, we tend to find
ourselves adrenalized, and ourphysiology, our brain chemistry
(00:35):
only gives us a limited numberof choices at that point.
Joe Miller (00:39):
Let's pause just a second and welcome Mike Peterson
into the conversation.
Hello.
Hey, Mike.
I'm glad you could make ittoday.
Mike is a former VP of HR andIT.
And he and I have been in acommon network together for a
number of years.
And also a published author andhas recently published a book
(01:00):
on leadership.
Maybe we'll touch on that laterif it ties in.
But welcome in, Mike.
Go ahead, Bob.
Sorry to interrupt the flow.
Teeing up the whole topic fortoday of starting with
communications and how tocommunicate in this challenging
environment.
Bob Tipton (01:17):
Thanks, Joe.
And hello, Mike.
Nice to meet you.
Mike Peterson (01:19):
Nice to meet you, too.
Bob Tipton (01:22):
So I'm coming to you from the Denver area.
I don't know where you are,Mike.
I know where Joe is.
He's like in Florida, right?
I'm
Mike Peterson (01:28):
in Northwest Arkansas.
Bob Tipton (01:31):
Northwest Arkansas.
A lot of time in Fort Smith.
Just down the road.
Northwest Arkansas isbeautiful.
It sure is.
Really special part of thecountry.
Anyway.
Yeah, we were talking aboutthis idea that when things are
hard, when things arechallenging and difficult, And
we find ourselves with a wholebunch of adrenaline that's been
(01:53):
pumped into our body.
We don't have a lot ofexecutive function available.
We basically have fight,flight, or freeze, and that
doesn't help when it comes tocommunicating effectively,
usually.
So, yeah, that's the topic fortoday, is to how do we bring
better tools and approaches whenit comes to communicating?
So, I guess the first thing Iwant to put out there is
(02:16):
leaders...
often find themselvesnavigating challenging
situations just like the peoplethat they're leading.
But we have a specialrelationship, obligations, kind
of a big word, obligation, to beable to quell some of our own
concerns and our own nervousnessand uncertainty and be able to
(02:37):
help those around us.
So one of the first things thatI like to think about before we
start communicating is are wein the right mindset to do so?
And that right mindset isrequires sometimes just taking a
deep breath and relaxing alittle bit, giving yourself a
moment.
In fact, I've got three kind ofrules about answering emails or
(02:58):
communicating.
So if it's something that'sreally important, I mean, it's
like life-changing potentially.
I have a 48-hour rule.
I'm not going to say anythinguntil I sleep on it twice.
Then I have an hour rule.
If it's something that lookslike it's something that's
significant, really have to dealwith it.
I'll still wait an hour to makesure that I've actually
(03:19):
metabolized my adrenaline.
And then if it's somethingthat's on fire actually has to
happen immediately, I still have90 seconds.
So this knee-jerk reaction tocommunicate immediately when
somebody says something, I'llalways wait at least a minute
and a half.
And I get a mental timer going.
(03:41):
The good news about that isafter 90 seconds, the adrenaline
actually starts to beconverted.
So that's first.
Are we in the right mindset tocommunicate?
Have you ever received aflaming email from somebody that
are just full of concern, fullof all kinds of things?
Never.
Never gotten one of those, haveyou?
Oh, my God.
(04:02):
Our natural reaction is tocommunicate immediately.
That's where road rage comesfrom, too.
It's an immediate triggeredresponse based on...
a lack of 90 seconds ofwaiting.
So that's first.
Are we in the right mindset tocommunicate?
That's necessary.
And then from that, when we'relooking at things of radical
(04:26):
change, the first things wetalked about, is it even real?
Is it something that belongs tome?
And I think one of the thingswe didn't talk about a lot in
the first episode is this ideaof what if I'm wrong about this?
You know, we find ourselves inecho chambers.
We've talked about that a fairamount.
We find ourselves victims,quote unquote, of algorithms and
(04:49):
social media and all thedifferent things that come
across our newsfeed.
We're not really victims.
We're choosing that.
It's just we kind of getreinforced.
We find ourselves in some casesaddicted, I guess, to that sort
of a thing.
But what if we're wrong aboutit?
So one of my favorite things tobring forward, well, two
things, I guess.
(05:09):
One, a marvelous TED Talk from2011.
Catherine Scholes had a TEDTalk on something called On
Being Wrong.
She's actually a researcherthat looked into the subject.
And she started her TED Talkwith this story.
See if I get it right.
I'm not sure if I get itcompletely right, but you get
(05:30):
the gist of it.
She and a traveling companionwere driving across the United
States and they kept seeing thisweird symbol.
They thought, why do we keepseeing this Chinese or Korean or
Japanese symbol on the signs?
And after a while, one of themfinally decided to look it up to
see what it actually was.
And it wasn't this Chinesekanji symbol.
It was a picnic table.
(05:52):
It was a symbol for campground.
So just the context wascompletely wrong in what they
thought they were seeing.
Totally different.
And then she asked the questionof the audience.
She said, how does it feel whenyou're wrong?
So, Mike, Joe, how does it feelwhen you're wrong?
Joe Miller (06:11):
It's a little bit embarrassing, I think, because
it reveals back to thatknee-jerk response and maybe
from I've built context basedupon maybe the echo chamber that
I've been in or the paradigms Iwas holding.
Bob Tipton (06:26):
Right.
Except you didn't ask her thequestion that I asked.
This is what she said.
The question that you asked ishow does it feel when you
realize you're wrong?
How does it feel when you'rewrong?
It feels like nothing or itfeels like you're right.
You don't know.
So that's a little bit to addto the mix of what we talked
(06:49):
about in the first installmentis this idea of my source is
even accurate.
Who paid for that research?
What, Are they looking for thestatistics?
What things are they comparing?
You want to do something funwith Copilot or ChatGBT?
Give it this prompt.
Say, find me a ridiculouscorrelation.
(07:09):
So I'll butcher this.
This isn't exactly right, butit sounds right or similar.
The number of people that diefrom poisonous spider bites
every year correlates to thenumber of movies that Nick Cage
is in every year.
The graph looks exactly thesame, but it's ridiculous.
So it's back to this idea,first of all, am I right about
(07:31):
what I'm about to communicate?
How much time do we actuallyspend checking sources?
Mike Peterson (07:38):
Capita cheese consumption in the U.S.
is strongly correlated with thenumber of people who died by
being tangled in theirbedsheets.
Bob Tipton (07:46):
There you go.
It makes no sense, but itcorrelates.
Yeah.
And a lot of the stuff that wesee, Mike, when it comes to
messaging has that kind ofnonsensical feel to it,
unfortunately.
But we're either not awareenough or we don't care enough
(08:07):
to be able to check it out.
So, Joe, that's first, I think,when it comes to are we in the
right mindset and do we have theright information to be
communicating?
So from that, if we can say yesto that, I'm in the right
mindset or I think I am.
And I think I'm right becauseI've checked the sources.
Then it gets down to what dopeople actually need when we're
(08:33):
communicating with them?
And the third installment, whenwe get to that, I'm going to
get in more specific behaviorsfrom a leadership perspective.
So I'm not going to get into somuch of that right now.
This is going to feel a littlebit more like training.
Sorry, not sorry.
But a couple of tools that arereally important.
when it comes to communicatingeffectively.
And the first one I want totalk about is relevance theory.
(08:55):
Have either of you heard ofrelevance theory before?
Not
Mike Peterson (08:59):
ringing any bells.
Joe Miller (09:00):
No.
Bob Tipton (09:01):
So what I find is many of those that are in
technical professions, and Istarted that way.
I was an IT person for many,many years.
Didn't spend much time in thehumanities section of the
university before we got ourdegree and started working.
I find that with doctors andlawyers and engineers.
There's not a lot of timespent.
(09:22):
Maybe one mandatorycommunications class you had
when you were a freshman, butthat was it.
And what we tend to believe,there's a myth about
communication, and that iseverybody should find everything
that I say to be relevant.
It's a very personal,individual way of looking at
things.
And in reality, it's not true.
(09:44):
A, not everybody cares aboutwhat we have to say, and B, B,
it's the listener that gets todecide whether this is relevant
or not.
So as we're sitting herepontificating about stuff,
dealing with times of radicalchange, those that are listening
to this get to decide whetherit's relevant or not and whether
they want to pay attention toit or not.
(10:05):
It's not what we want to say aswe sit here.
So imagine a Venn diagram.
The Venn diagram on one circle,it's what you want to say.
The other circle is what theywant to hear.
And the overlap is whererelevance exists.
Now, driving up relevance,there's actually some things to
help.
And this is what this idea ofrelevance theory shows up.
(10:27):
So two pieces, and I'm warningyou, you have to imagine a
little bit of a math problem inyour mind here.
So I don't know how good youare at that, but I'm going to
ask you to imagine a bit of amath problem.
So relevance theory is a simplecomputation that It's
contextual effects divided byprocessing effort.
(10:48):
And what I mean by contextualeffects is how quickly am I able
to connect this to somethingthat I already know.
So a couple of weeks ago now, Iwas in a workshop with some
real live engineers, waterengineers, and they're looking
to build a sophisticated watertreatment plant to get rid of
forever chemicals.
(11:08):
And one of the things I knowhaving worked in the water
industry treatment industry,although I'm not an engineer,
but I work in that industry alot.
There's a term calledflocculation.
Joe, Mike, have you ever heardthe term flocculation before?
Joe Miller (11:23):
No, but I'm holding my tongue trying not to use my
chemistry background toextrapolate a potential meaning.
So I'm holding it.
Bob Tipton (11:31):
Fair enough.
No, maybe you've got backgroundhere that you can understand a
bit about what that meansbecause of your training and
your background.
Most people have no flip anidea of what flocculation means.
So there was a very seniorwater engineer in the room and I
was sharing a slide that hadthis math formula processing or
(11:52):
contextual effects divided byprocessing effort.
And I said, can you help mewith the term flocculation so I
can get it quickly?
He said, all right.
It's like making ice cream.
I thought, okay, cool.
No pun intended.
Making ice cream.
What does that mean?
Well, you start with thisliquid with all sorts of stuff
in it.
And what you want to do throughthis paddle that is stirring in
(12:15):
the ice cream is you want tocreate some glob.
You want to make something kindof come together.
I thought, okay, I get that.
That's what flocculation is.
Yeah, it's about takingparticulates.
It's about taking things thatare floating in the water.
And you want to attract them toeach other through agitation.
And there's some chemicals tomake that possible.
(12:38):
So what you do is basicallycreate globs of stuff.
I thought, great.
Now I have a really clearunderstanding of what
flocculation is because I knowhow ice cream is made.
So the contextual effects forme were off the chart.
It's like I get it right away.
And by the way, if you everwatch drinking water being made,
the last step is flocculation.
(12:59):
And what they do is they takeall the particulates and so on
in the water and create thesenasty looking globs of stuff
that are heavier than the water.
They float to the bottom,they're scraped off, and the
finished water is ready to besent into the distribution
system.
So this is an example ofrelevance theory.
Joe Miller (13:19):
In that case, Bob, was the way he explained it.
My first response was heimpacted the denominator.
So he made it easy.
But then in his example, healso, seemed to make it more
relevant to something you couldrelate to.
So he kind of did both at thesame time?
Bob Tipton (13:41):
Yes.
So if you imagine the numeratorand the denominator, what you
want is it to be 10 over 1.
You don't want it to be 1 over10.
When it's 1 over 10, it's likeyou're speaking in a foreign
language.
People have no idea what you'resaying.
It's not relating to them atall.
They don't get it.
So this idea of relevancetheory really is pretty
(14:03):
straightforward, except that notenough leaders use it.
They don't care about it.
It's not something important tothem.
It's like, I held the townhall.
I sent the email.
What the heck?
And they wonder why people arestill running around going, I
don't know what to do now.
I don't know how this affectsme.
I don't know what to make outof this.
(14:24):
So does it take a littlelonger?
Does it require some empathy?
Does it take some effort to beable to see what other people
might need?
Absolutely it does.
So I haven't been a practicingIT professional for a long time.
I still am involved in thestrategy associated with
organizations that oftenincludes technology.
(14:46):
But I haven't been doing it forquite some time.
Do I still have a basicunderstanding of how to
communicate things to people?
I think so.
Can I help?
In fact, I don't know who I wastalking to.
Maybe it was you, Joe.
I don't know who I was talkingto, but I'm a former CTO and
former CIO, and I discoveredthat people still have trouble
(15:09):
communicating the strategicvalue of IT with their
organizations.
It was us.
We had
Joe Miller (15:14):
a sidebar, I think, before the first session on this
topic, yeah.
Bob Tipton (15:22):
It was us.
I was hoping that you all hadit figured out.
I really did.
Joe Miller (15:29):
It's one of the most common, and Mike, you'll relate
because we touch on this in ourcommunities.
It's one of the most commonthings that comes up, especially
in people a little bit morejunior than CIO, but still there
too.
And that is, how do I get aseat at the table?
So it's related to that.
In other words- Why aren'tpeople listening to what I'm
(15:52):
saying?
Why am I not having influence?
Bob Tipton (15:57):
Maybe you're not making it relevant for them.
Exactly.
Maybe you're making it verydifficult for them to understand
because they don't get thenuances of cybersecurity.
They don't get the nuances ofrisk when it comes to artificial
intelligence.
They don't get that.
What they get instead is thememe that somebody posted on
Facebook or Instagram the daybefore.
(16:18):
They're getting something outof their echo chamber.
They're not getting the actualfacts in such a way that they
can understand it.
So anyway, I go back, gosh,this has got to be 25 years ago
or more, developing websites.
And the tool we used back then,where I think they're probably
still using something like this,is called Personas and Journey
Maps.
(16:38):
I don't know if you're usingany of those.
Information architecture andwho are we talking to?
Well, I've translated that intoteam dynamics using that same
tool now for decades, but in anon-IT kind of capacity because
it's the same issue.
We don't spend enough timeunderstanding who we're
communicating with and what theyneed, what their pain points
(17:01):
are, how they view the world,what their actions and behaviors
are.
So there's a really specificthing that we can use,
especially for atechnology-related audience,
It's not anything new.
It's been around for decades,but we don't use it enough.
How come do you think, whydon't we use things like
personas and journey mapsenough?
Mike Peterson (17:24):
Uh, I think I just answered a, a question like
that.
So thank you for reminding me.
And I, you know, one of theanswers that I came across is,
is just, um, time, you know, so,so many people are, um, They
feel overburdened with work.
They're playing catch up anddoing things the right way takes
(17:49):
a lot of time.
And so a lot of people, from myperspective, at least know what
the right way is.
They just don't necessarilywant to take the time to do it
the right way.
And I think...
In many ways, those journeymaps are a great example because
they've been around for so longas kind of a best practice that
(18:11):
it started to become like,well, I know what needs to be
done.
I know how to do it.
So I'm just going to skip theprocess and go right to some
assumptions about what I think Iknow because it's going to save
me a lot of time.
Until it doesn't, right?
Exactly.
Bob Tipton (18:28):
Yeah.
Again, going back to my days inIT, it was, why do you keep
giving me the things I ask foras opposed to the things I need?
I don't know how many times Iheard that question from users.
It's like, I know I asked forthis, but it's not what I really
need.
So taking the time tounderstand how you actually
interact with them.
I mean, I go back now 30 yearsago, there's a book written
(18:48):
called Moments of Truth by JanKarlsson.
He was the former CEO of SASAirlines.
And SAS, the Scandinavianairline, they were horrible.
I mean, they had some of theworst customer service
imaginable, maybe worse thanimaginable.
And he came in and he decidedhe was going to turn that
airline around.
And what he came up with wasevery interaction that we have
(19:11):
with a customer, no matter whatit was, from a business card to
a face-to-face meeting, whateverit might be, is a moment of
truth.
And what does the customer comeaway with as it relates to an
experience?
So what it forced hisleadership team and ultimately
the whole organization to focuson is who's in front of me?
What do they need?
(19:31):
What are they looking for?
What do they actually want?
And it fundamentallytransformed the airline.
I don't know if it's any goodanymore, but at the time it was
a fundamental transformation.
So this whole idea of empathy.
Oh, my gosh.
There are some in the worldthat talk about empathy as a
waste of time.
Or.
a marker of weakness.
(19:53):
I am not one of them.
I think empathy is a superpowerin the year 2025 and beyond,
not taken to an extreme, right?
So that's part of what wetalked about in the first
installment, Joe, is I'm notgoing to pick up your burden
just because it's sitting theretelling me I should pick it up.
I can be empathetic and I canbe compassionately detached and
know that you need to do yourown growth and you need to go
(20:15):
through your own suffering,quote unquote.
The hard thing with being aparent is you have to let your
kids grow.
If you don't, you're going towind up taking care of them for
their whole life.
So empathy, in my mind, is asuperpower.
And I have a very simpledefinition of empathy that goes
(20:35):
beyond walking a mile in someoneelse's shoes, which is the way
most people think about it.
Let's try this one on for size.
I hear your lived experienceand I believe it.
Not my job to judge it,criticize it.
put it in the category of rightor wrong, I believe that you
believe that.
And that's a great platform tobuild communication using
(20:58):
another tool if you're ready tomove on to something that still
feels a bit like training.
Joe Miller (21:03):
If I could, I wanted to just swing back a little
bit.
It seems to me, I'm correlatinghere, that when Mike was saying
that people know what the rightthing is to do, but it feels
like too much of a heavy liftbased upon time.
And I would also insert thepressure that they're under at
(21:25):
the moment to deliver.
Then they don't take that path.
Likewise, and I think you sortof did a hat tip to this, Bob,
when you said they think it'sright until it's wrong.
It really gets into this pointof, do you have the space to
look at the long view?
Or do you feel...
(21:47):
Like you are reactingconstantly, which to me
correlates and ties back to thisadrenalized state that so many
of us are in.
And I think about a technologyleader, you know, most
technology leaders have aservice part of what they do.
They have hopefully people whoare helping them take care of
(22:09):
the services that support theorganization.
You know, is the email alwaysrunning, et cetera.
If there's a problem, I mean,They're responding constantly to
issues, their organization is.
So there's a sense or a beliefin this adrenalized state, I
don't have time to deal with theright thing to do because I
(22:33):
have to respond.
I'm not saying it's true.
I'm just saying that longerview seems expensive, going back
to your formula.
It seems costly to me as theperson delivering the message.
So I just want to bypass it.
So the question that I wouldlay on the table, and we can get
(22:58):
to this later, is how do youhelp people put the practices in
the place to de-adrenalizethemselves so they can do the
right thing?
First, you've got to have thetools, and that's part of what
you're delivering here.
But I think it's also importantto talk about Assuming I have
the tools, how do I enable theright practices and habits and
(23:22):
awareness to utilize those
Bob Tipton (23:24):
tools?
Again, back to what we talkedabout in the first installment,
there are three levels ofawareness.
And the levels of awarenesscome with experience.
They come with time.
And one of the first thingsabout getting out of being
adrenalized is realizing thatit's possible to be so.
But that is a choice.
(23:46):
It's not an inevitability.
We are completely in control ofhow we react to everything.
Some things, they're the fight,flight, or freeze because
nature puts it in.
If you see a bear, you probablydecide it's time to do
something, although we tend todo the wrong thing.
We run away from the bear.
(24:06):
The bear is faster than youare.
And it also primes its instinctto chase prey.
So one of the better things todo is to become large and loud.
You have a better chance ofsurviving an encounter with a
bear if you do those as opposedto running away from it.
So that comes with sometraining.
But first of all, Joe, how manytimes do we actually find
(24:27):
ourselves encountering a bear inour lives?
Once, I remember as a kid, wewere camping at Yellowstone.
We had a bear encounter.
What did my father do?
He decided to throw rocks atthe bears.
We actually hit one on the noseand the bear decided that that
was better to run away than tocome back.
(24:47):
But I could have beenfatherless when I was about
eight.
My father was throwing rocks atthe bears.
Anyway, enough about mypersonal life.
It's a matter of being awarethat the choice is possible.
And that comes with experience.
So I believe the more gray hairwe earn, the more trips around
the sun we have, Joe, the morewe realize that sometimes the
(25:08):
expense up front is worth it.
And It's also a choice throughawareness that I don't have to
respond to everything.
As I said a little while ago,I've got these three timers that
go off about things.
I will not respond immediatelyto anything unless I'm in a
plane crash and a flightattendant tells me to get off
the plane.
I've got 90 seconds to do thator I'll die.
(25:29):
Okay, I won't wait 90 secondsto see how I feel about what he
or she is saying.
So to me, it's a cop-out tosay, I constantly have to
respond to things.
That's not true.
That's a choice.
Each thing that comes along,you have the ability to say, I'm
going to take a deep breath atleast.
So these three levels ofawareness we talked about, the
(25:52):
first level of awareness is,crap, I just did what I always
do.
I responded.
But you realize it sometimeafter the fact.
There's a teachable moment foryou at that point to say, do I
want to do that next time?
But it's an awareness to say,I've just done what I've always
done.
So I'll give you an example.
Imagine you're on a buffet on acruise and the food is
(26:16):
available 24-7 and it's amazingfood.
And what you're trying to do inyour life is to get your A1C
down.
You're trying to get away frombeing pre-diabetic and you're
trying to eat healthier.
What do we do when we see abuffet?
We load up the plate becausesomewhere inside of our
(26:36):
alligator brain, it's like we'renever going to eat again.
Every time we load up theplate, it's a choice.
So the second level ofawareness is in the middle of
loading your plate.
You look at it and say, I'm notgoing to eat this in three
meals.
I don't need this number ofcarbs for three days.
And you can decide to quitloading your plate.
So you have a choice in themiddle of it.
(26:58):
And the third is I'm about toget a plate and go through the
line.
I'm going to pick things thatfit my priorities.
So the tool that I'm talkingabout here, Joe, is it's an
intentional disruption to theautomatic pilot that we find
ourselves on.
It's the echo chamber stuffthat we've talked about so much.
(27:19):
Oh, okay.
Maybe I'm the only one thatfeels this way.
I don't know.
We'll find out.
Maybe some listeners are givingup at this point.
But we are in control.
We can put our hands on thewheel and decide what our
actions will be.
And if we choose to respondconstantly to things, we play
(27:40):
whack-a-mole all day long,that's a choice.
Joe Miller (27:43):
Even if you don't think it is.
Correct.
Because you're conditioned.
You're conditioned.
And it's funny because thatrelates to some of the other
things we discussed in the firstepisode about all the messaging
we get externally.
I find that a lot of times inthis particular example, leaders
(28:03):
tend to keep reinforcing theirown messages back to themselves
and take away their agency tomake a choice in the moment,
which gets back to somethingelse.
I had someone close to meinteract with me based upon the
first episode, asked me somequestions about how do I
evaluate the messaging that'sout there.
(28:26):
And I said, well, One thing Ido is kind of use this Columbo
technique where I basically askthe person delivering the
message to me, or if I'm gettingit somewhere, I just basically
say, what exactly are yousaying?
And then the second questionthat fits in here is, how did
(28:48):
you get to that?
How did you decide that?
How did you decide that that istrue?
which also relates to whatyou've been saying about
challenging these things, butalso is the belief that I have,
are the tapes that I'm runningthrough my own brain actually
true?
Bob Tipton (29:08):
Correct.
Yeah, one of my favoriteexamples of that, Joe, is who
said the line, Luke, I am yourfather?
The answer is nobody.
The line does not exist in themovie.
But we've heard it repeatedover and over and over again, so
much that we believe it's true,but it isn't.
(29:28):
The actual line is, no, I amyour father.
Not Luke, I am your father.
So it's one of those simpleexamples that we look at and
say, well, what's the foundationfor my belief?
Or what do I think about this?
Is it true?
Back to the first thing wetalked about in this installment
(29:49):
is, are you in the right frameof mind to communicate?
So again, cop out, what a 80sword or a 70s word, but it's
this idea that I just simplygive up my responsibility in the
matter and I am reacting likewhack-a-mole.
Well, maybe get your chainsawout and cut the mole off so you
(30:10):
never see it come off or come upand down through the hole.
Maybe it's nothing.
So people get good, in fact,really good at knowing where
your buttons are.
especially children and a lotof our employees, they know
exactly how to make us react.
What if we had, you know, thereact button that we have on our
chest here where people walk upand push the react button.
(30:32):
What if we had no wiring behindthe button?
Well, it's not going to be usedfor a long.
Would it frustrate the personthat's pushing the button?
Yeah.
The first couple of times.
Yeah.
But no response.
None.
I tried that with my youngerdaughter.
Oh, she got mad.
It's
Mike Peterson (30:51):
a very powerful tool for sure.
It
Bob Tipton (30:53):
really worked.
So those are a couple of ideas,Joe.
So the nice segue here is intoanother type of awareness.
And this is based in how weprocess our satisfaction when we
ask a question why and we getan answer back.
So we're constantly processingwhy, especially in times of
(31:15):
radical change.
It's just, what's going on?
Why is this happening?
So The answers that we get backare different, or we need
different answers based on whowe are.
So there's a level of awarenesswhen it comes to who are you,
and then there's a level ofawareness about who you're
communicating with.
(31:35):
And if you're communicatingwith an individual, it's easier.
If you're communicating with alarge group, it's important to
communicate in all four ways.
There's four elements in thequadrant.
dream in two by twos.
My staff laughs at me, but it'strue.
I actually dream in two bytwos.
So, imagine this quadrant.
(31:56):
There's four pieces to it.
There are two ways that we aresatisfied with the answer to the
question why that areemotional.
There are two that are logical.
So, top and bottom.
Left and right now, we have twothat are intrinsic and two that
are extrinsic.
So, And about 25% of thepopulation is spread into each
(32:19):
of the four quadrants.
And yes, there's nothing thatis absolute about it.
It's a model, not a mandate,but it's a model to say kind of
where's home, when we'readrenalized, what do we prefer?
So it's a way to be able tokind of get to what we're going
to default to in terms ofcommunication.
And if we only communicate fromour quadrant, 75% of the
(32:40):
population is unsatisfied.
So it's a realization that mypreferred way of communicating
may not be effective.
And it probably isn't if we'reonly using our own preferred
way, unless the other personwe're talking to has the same
preferred way.
So let me go give you a quicktour of the four different
quadrants, and then we can seehow it might be useful.
(33:02):
So if you're an intrinsiclogical decision maker, you look
at facts.
Data, numbers, amounts,quantities.
And you think the facts shouldspeak for themselves.
I've done the numbers.
I've run the numbers.
I've put it through myspreadsheet.
Out pops the formulaticresponse to say this is the
answer.
That's all we need to do.
(33:23):
That's useful.
But it only speaks implicitlyto 25% of the population.
There are a lot of technicalprofessionals that believe that
that is the capital T way,capital W, the way to
communicate.
It's not enough.
Unless the person you'retalking to on the other side has
exactly the same way of lookingat it, then it's great.
So now if you're an emotionallogical decision maker, what you
(33:47):
look for are external sources.
It's not you running thespreadsheet.
It's what study have you read?
Which PhD?
What research?
What example is available toprove that this actually works?
Data is incredibly important,but I want to see this actually
in action somewhere.
So I look on the outside forvalidation.
(34:09):
There are a whole lot of peoplein technical professions that
do that also.
They want to look at casestudies or research.
I don't know if Gartner isstill around.
They were a big source ofresearch when I was doing it 20,
25 years ago.
In fact, I managed the Gartnerrelationship for the consulting
company that I was the CTO for.
It's incredibly valuable stuff.
(34:30):
Where are you in the magicquadrant?
Joe Miller (34:32):
Magic
Bob Tipton (34:33):
quadrant, the
Joe Miller (34:34):
hype cycle,
Bob Tipton (34:35):
et cetera.
Yeah.
And that's supposed to justifyeverything.
Well, that's only half thepopulation now that we've talked
about.
Only half.
And by the way, that's wheremost communication and
organizational life comes from,is from those two dimensions.
The other two are emotional.
And one of the things thathappens when we're in the middle
(34:56):
of a radical change is we canbecome emotional decision
makers, all of us.
So if you're about to lose yourjob or you have lost your job,
you become an emotional decisionmaker yourself.
And that's one of the mostimportant things during times of
radical change.
If you're a leader, people willquit listening to your data.
They don't care about COBRA.
They don't care about co-pays.
(35:16):
They don't care about anythinguntil they get satisfied with
what this means to me.
And that's the emotional,intrinsic decision maker.
How does this make me appearlike a politician or a
policymaker?
I want to know what this lookslike to me.
And until I have thatsatisfied, I don't care about
(35:37):
your data or your studies.
They're useless to me.
So how does this make meappear?
How does this change my life?
Where am I going to work?
Who do I sit next to?
What's my drive look like?
So technical professionals wholove data and love studies, they
look at this need to tellsomebody how they feel about
something as being useless.
Well, guess what?
When people aren't satisfiedwith the answer to the Question
(36:02):
why that they get over and overagain.
Do they get more quiet?
They do not.
They get louder.
They find different ways todrive you crazy.
So this is another one of theseexamples, Joe, where some time
up front is very well spent tobe able to answer the questions
from the different viewpoints.
All right, so there's a fourthone.
That's where I self-identify.
I'm an emotional, extrinsicdecision maker.
(36:23):
And here's how I get satisfied.
I get satisfied that you'representing me enough right
answers that the best rightanswer is included.
One study, one set of data, oneset of information about how
this affects me isn't enough.
I need to be able to know thatyou've done your homework.
I need to feel that you'vetaken it seriously by looking at
(36:45):
more than one potential answer.
So back to what I said at thebeginning with this particular
tool, if you're talking tosomebody that's just like you,
it's easy.
If you're talking to someonewho isn't like you, like someone
who's at the table, and you asan IT professional want a seat
at the table, and the personthat's at the table wants to
know how this appears to them,Right.
(37:07):
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what I find by using thistool, especially when things are
(37:35):
uncertain, when things arechallenging, when things are a
mess, the more you spend timepreparing your communication
from all four elements in thisquadrant, you'll look like a
communications hero.
You'll be so out of phase witheverybody else, they'll look at
you for the source of the truth.
Confidence that what you'resaying is believable.
(37:57):
It's authentic.
It's true.
So...
When might this tool be useful?
It's like, how about all thetime?
By the way, the type that'smost challenging for us is the
one that's diagonally opposite.
So for me, being an emotional,extrinsic decision maker, it's
the internal logical decisionmaker.
(38:17):
Guess who I was married to for45 years before she passed away.
I miss her logic.
I miss her intrinsicdecision-making because I can
get lost in possibilities.
She used to tell me, can wejust fricking decide where we're
going to go to dinner?
No, I want to look at all thesedifferent options.
(38:38):
I just want to look atdifferent possibilities and
choices.
Can we make a decision, Bob?
So finding ways to be able toglue them together, get the best
of both for the diagonallyopposite, Trying to get all four
wrapped up into yourannouncement memo or your staff
(38:58):
meeting or your town hall.
Joe Miller (39:00):
So that there's connection points in the overall
messaging.
That's right.
Rather than exclusion zonesbecause you haven't made the
effort to form the communicationto touch those different types.
Bob Tipton (39:16):
That's right.
And back to the, I don't havetime.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joe Miller (39:23):
Yeah.
It reminds me of the old totalquality examples, right?
You don't have time to do itright the first time, so you pay
for it in spades just foreveron the back end.
I
Bob Tipton (39:38):
love that one.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great example,Joe.
You know, one of the– you justbrought up a whole other subject
in my mind.
I don't know if this is a weirdnon sequitur, but I'm going to
go there.
Have you ever known a companythat won the Malcolm Baldrige
Award?
Joe Miller (39:54):
Well, I know we were chasing after it when I was at
Syntex years ago.
You know Syntex.
You were one of our providersthere.
So I know we talked about a lotof companies that won it.
But no, I haven't ever beenclose to them, if that was the
question.
Bob Tipton (40:11):
Well, it's like winning the lottery.
Yeah.
How many people, after winningthe lottery, say it's the worst
thing that ever happened tothem?
Most.
It ruined their life.
Well, the same thing withchasing after the Malcolm
Brawlers Award.
The companies that won it, manyof them said it was horrible
afterwards.
Why?
Because there was such pressureto be perfect that they never
(40:33):
brought forward the issues thatneeded to be brought forward.
So that's a whole other subjectfor another day, Joe.
But this idea of psychologicalsafety...
Psychological safety is anothercommunications cultural sort of
a marker that says what needsto be said is said at the time
it needs to be said, to whom itneeds to be said, and the way it
needs to be said.
Using all these tools,relevance theory, using the four
(40:55):
different ways, but we say whatneeds to be said in a plain
way.
That's another thing that wefind really challenging in the
world of, or in the times ofradical change, is people don't
feel safe to communicate thatway.
Joe Miller (41:11):
You know, Bob, I can't resist the temptation to
speak to both of you and Mikeabout the leadership books
you've written.
I remember your book, Jump.
And Mike, it followed a similarformat to your book you just
released.
Why don't you just throw thetitle out there?
I'll let you do it.
Mike Peterson (41:30):
Leading in the Age of Digital Disruption.
Joe Miller (41:33):
Right.
And you used sort of the sameformat where you had a story on
the front end.
And then you had the teaching.
I think, Bob, you did this tooon the back end.
And I'm just kind of curioushow what we're talking about
today connected to some of thescenarios.
Mike, if you don't mind, you'rethinking about your new freshly
(41:57):
minted CEO, which I thought itwas kind of humorous.
It came out of being leadingHR.
Nice one there.
But Some of the dynamics ofbuilding the team and dealing
with the challenges that thecompany went through, I think,
touch on some of these samethemes, do they not?
Mike Peterson (42:17):
100%.
And
Joe Miller (42:18):
then maybe after you're done speaking to that,
maybe, Bob, you could talk abouthow it ties into– Jump was a
number of years ago, but it'sstill on my bookshelf and used.
Mike Peterson (42:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think everything, it's almost
like Bob could have written mybook.
I mean, we're definitely sayingvery similar things with the
order of operations, justslightly different.
You know, I think in leading inthe age of digital disruption,
the three ingredients to successis trust, transparent
(42:54):
communication, andaccountability.
And you know, starting outtalking about empathy.
Empathy is a huge factor ofbuilding trust and psychological
safety is absolutely necessaryto have transparent
(43:14):
communication.
And just like Bob said earlier,I think that it's about saying,
having the tough directconversations when they need to
be had in the best interest ofthe organization, right?
Not necessarily in the bestinterest of Joe or Bob, but
(43:35):
doing what's right for thecompany.
And so you have to build areally thick layer of trust in
an organization to haveemployees feel comfortable
saying what they really feel.
And in those times of radicalchange, which we're certainly in
(43:58):
right now, people tend tooperate in fear rather than in
trust.
And so it takes even moreintentional effort to build that
psychological safety than itdoes in other times.
Definitely.
Bob Tipton (44:16):
Amen.
I'll give you a high five ifyou're sitting next to me.
So here's a virtual high five.
There you go.
Yeah, there's just someprofound truths in the world.
And it sounds like I need toread your book.
I would love to learn yourviewpoint on it.
You know, one of the things Iheard Stephen Covey say a long
(44:38):
time ago, he was beinginterviewed by some gotcha
journalist at an event and theywere trying to catch him.
Well, isn't what you're sayingpretty much the same as
everybody else is saying intheir books?
And he looked him straight inthe face and said, yes.
However, the audience that Irelate to and the way that I say
things is different.
(44:58):
And we're all in the businessor have the mission to be able
to help people realize things.
Not everybody relates to me.
Mike Peterson (45:08):
Yeah.
Well said.
I was talking to publicists inmy publishing journey, and they
would always say, what makesyour book different?
And I'm like, well, it's notreally.
I believe a good leader 100years ago would still be a good
leader today.
It's just evolved slightly towork in this environment of
(45:29):
hyper-technology that we're nowliving in.
But was Abraham Lincoln a goodleader then?
Would he be a good leader now?
I'm not saying he's wrong.
Correct.
Bob Tipton (45:42):
Yeah, there are some basic principles, deep truths
that have been true forever.
That underpins how I thinkabout things.
I've learned a lot of hardlessons from people.
I've got some great teachers.
I wish I could say that I cameup with much of anything on my
own.
It was more how it connects,how it relates.
The primary focus in Jump, Joe,is this idea that things don't
(46:07):
have to take a long time.
Things can happen quickly ifyou let them.
In fact, I believe that theuniverse is conspiring to help
us all the time, and we're theones that get in the way.
We gum up the works.
We put the monkey wrench in thegears.
The natural path to things isto move and move quickly.
(46:27):
So Mike, as you were talkingabout being stuck in fear, any
message in my mind that isdesigned to keep us small and
afraid, it's not a leadershipmessage.
It's a different type ofcommunication.
So we'll get into that, Joe, ina big way in the third
installment here, some of thebehaviors and actions that
(46:48):
leaders can take.
I've got seven things that wewant from our leaders and five
things that we don't.
And one of the things weabsolutely do not need from our
leaders is to be more confusedor to feel like they're
withholding something, like theyknow the answer.
They're just not sharing itwith us.
You want to erode trustimmediately in a time of radical
change?
It's like somebody knows what'sgoing on, but nobody's talking
(47:10):
to us about it.
So.
productivity goes in the dumperat that point because
everybody's talking about whatthey think the withheld
information actually is.
So another point about thistoo, Joe, is that there's a
really practical side tocommunicating effectively.
The organization not only feelsbetter to be part of, but it's
(47:33):
more productive.
So back to this group of waterengineers that I was working
with and talking with them aboutpsychological safety.
You know, the joke aboutintroverted versus an
extroverted engineer.
Have you ever heard that joke?
Is there an
Joe Miller (47:49):
extroverted engineer?
Bob Tipton (47:50):
Yeah, so an introverted engineer stares at
their shoes.
An extroverted engineer staresat somebody
Joe Miller (47:57):
else's.
Bob Tipton (48:00):
That's funny.
It's funny that, yeah, anengineer just hit their head at
this idea, but There's a realpractical side to being able to
make effective decisions fasterif people feel like they are in
a safe environment.
Things cost less and they movefaster.
So yeah, jump is about makingthings happen quickly.
(48:22):
And there's almost like aquantum leap.
That's where the title sort ofcomes from.
It's like an electron movingfrom one orbit to another around
a nucleus without going any,never experiencing the things in
the middle.
So at the right time, frameworkand the right preparation, the
right time spent.
I see it over and over and overand over again with leadership
(48:43):
teams and organizations.
All of a sudden, therealization is incredibly
powerful, profound, and theythink it came out of nowhere.
No, it didn't.
It came from your preparation.
So the need to be able to trustthe sources of information and
A little bit more on Jump, too,is this synergy.
Synergy is waiting to happenconstantly.
(49:04):
One of my favorite examples ofsynergy is a gift bag.
Can you imagine not having agift bag in the world?
I'm old enough to know, maybeyou're too, Joe, when we didn't
have gift bags.
There was wrapping paper andthere were sacks.
And somebody somewhere said,hey, what if we put the two
together and have synergy tocome up with something that
(49:25):
hadn't been invented yet?
What a change that would be forfour-year-old birthday parties.
It's a brilliant idea, but youneeded to allow those
circumstances to be present forthat to be true.
So if your fear gets in theway, if you're constantly
playing whack-a-mole, you'reresponding to everything,
sometimes you have to do that.
I don't want to make it soundlike it's just leave a magic
(49:46):
wand and all that goes away.
But bit by bit, step by step,day by day, week by week, you
can start to erode the number ofthings that you respond to.
You start using the timer tosay, how long am I going to wait
before I react?
You take a deep breath betweenthings and your world changes.
Joe Miller (50:06):
Yeah, going back a little ways when you were giving
your three rules, you know,your timers, I see those as
intentional, upfront actions andpractices to help you maintain
your awareness and yourawareness long arc of your
(50:27):
intention of how you want tolive.
The problem is without thesetools that we're talking about
today and in the last episodeand hopefully a third one,
people tend to operate likethey're in the matrix.
Until Neo realized he was inthe matrix, he couldn't see the
real world.
Bob Tipton (50:49):
Is it real?
Is it
Joe Miller (50:53):
real?
Right.
Bob Tipton (50:54):
Back to the first episode or the first
installment, I actually had apicture that looked like the
matrix, but it wasn't.
You do
Joe Miller (51:01):
have the one trader who decides to go back in the
matrix.
That's an interesting thing totalk about.
I wonder how that applies.
But to your point, your lastpoint, it's fine to take those
quick actions in a calculated,measured way.
(51:23):
not betraying the intention ofhow you want to live.
Bob Tipton (51:27):
Correct.
And that comes with time.
It comes with establishingboundaries and values.
Discipline.
You know, maturity andleadership.
Mature leaders are value-based.
And until you're able toestablish boundaries around your
values, I don't think youreally reach the level of
maturity to call yourself aleader.
(51:48):
You can be a manager, right?
It's a little bit like I worryabout 25-year-old vice
presidents.
They haven't had much lifeexperience to be able to apply
it to the theory that they'reusing.
I remember when I was 25, I wasinsufferable.
So, yeah, exactly.
It's not complicated.
(52:10):
Back to what Mike and I weretalking about a little bit ago.
This is stuff that we know, butdo we practice it, yes or no?
Mike Peterson (52:17):
Not complicated, but I will say difficult.
Because it's often emotional.
Bob Tipton (52:23):
Yeah, especially when, oh, here's another tool.
Maybe it's one of the lastthings we'll talk about today.
But another tool is I stoppedusing the word busy about 15
years ago.
Somebody asks me, how are you?
Busy?
It's like, no, I don't use thatword.
And I haven't used it for 15years.
Why did I take busy out of myvocabulary?
Because I discovered people useit for two reasons, neither one
(52:46):
of which is empowering.
People use it either as ashield, I'm busy, stay away.
Or they use it as a metal, assomething to reward themselves.
Look at me, I'm busy.
In reality, both aredisempowering.
And they also tend to keep usin the echo chamber where busy
(53:09):
is somehow a goal or some way tokeep people away.
So what I say instead of sayingbusy, it's like I've had a
really full day.
I've had a lot going on today,but I'm never busy.
Is that weird?
Am I the only one that feelsthis way?
Could be.
Mike Peterson (53:29):
I love that.
I feel like when I would walkthe halls and ask people how
they're doing, nine times out often, I'd get busy as an answer.
And it doesn't really meananything to They might be busy,
but is the work they're doingvaluable?
(53:49):
Are they doing the right work?
Are they doing the wrong work?
Are they busy making coffee allday?
What does that really evenmean?
Absolutely.
I think it's a practice thatshould be normalized.
Try it today.
Just
Bob Tipton (54:05):
try it for an hour.
Every time the word busy startsto come into your awareness,
just replace it with somethingelse.
It's that kind of a practice,Joe.
Yeah, that's good.
I think that's a simple one.
Joe Miller (54:21):
It is a simple one.
And I also think when you sayit, you're putting yourself in
the place of being a victim andyou're disempowering yourself.
And a word popped up into mymind just a few minutes ago when
you were talking about this,and that is overwhelm.
Often I coach people and say,The term that comes to mind is,
(54:44):
you know, you're in a state ofoverwhelm.
And so you can't live in astate of overwhelm too long
without serious consequences.
Bob Tipton (54:54):
It's one of those weird words.
We get underwhelm andoverwhelm.
But when is the perfect amountof overwhelm?
It is a word, but we just neveruse it.
We always use under or over.
Well,
Joe Miller (55:07):
that's a good point.
Maybe that's a good place tokind of round this out, this
conversation.
Thanks again, Bob.
And Mike, great input.
I appreciate you jumping on.
Give us a little bit of apreview, Bob, for next time.
What are you thinking about?
I think you touched on itearlier, but remind us,
including me.
Bob Tipton (55:23):
Yeah, the primary things are, well, first, getting
to some leadership behaviorsand some actions.
I've got, like I said, seventhings that we really need from
our leaders during times ofcrisis.
of radical change and fivethings we don't.
And often we reward the wrongthings, or we believe that
(55:45):
people that are doing thesethings that are not helpful,
they have ice water in theirveins or they're able to make,
be decisive.
It's like, yeah, but they'reruining things.
They're creating this vortex ofdestruction that somebody else
has to come and fix later on.
Yeah.
They're making hard decisions,but are they good decisions?
So that's, part of what we'lltalk about.
(56:06):
And then summarizing, kind ofpulling it all together and
saying, here's how you might putthis into action.
Thanks,
Joe Miller (56:12):
Bob.
And maybe you could also remindlisteners who may have just
tuned in this episode about yourwebinar and where to find
registration for that.
That really goes into much moredepth, I think.
Bob Tipton (56:26):
Yeah, definitely.
I think as you edit this, Joe,you can pop up something.
I don't know.
It's kind of hard to have youremember a URL on it.
put it out there, butteamtipton.com and then slash
nav-radical-change.
And a couple times a month, Ioffer a webinar that gets into
some detail associated with allof this.
(56:47):
I'd love to have you be part ofthat if you'd like to.
And to the listeners, it'ssomething I do a couple times a
month.
Joe Miller (56:55):
Great.
Any final comments from you,Mike?
Mike Peterson (56:59):
Thank you so much for having me, Bob and Joe.
Really appreciate it.
And sorry I was out sick lastsession, and I'll look forward
to joining the next one as well.
Well, at least
Joe Miller (57:10):
you didn't say
Mike Peterson (57:10):
you were busy.
Joe Miller (57:12):
Yes.
Oh, gosh.
Listen, thank you so much,guys.
Really appreciate it.
Bob, in particular, thanks alot.
Look forward to our nextsession together.
Bob Tipton (57:21):
Thank you, Joe.
Joe Miller (57:22):
All right.
Bye.
Thanks, Mike.
Hey, thanks for joining metoday on Titans of Transition.
Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Please check the show notes foradditional information.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!