This week, we welcome Dr. James Chitwood, Army veteran, former university president, sales operations expert, and author of Leadership is Not Enough, for an eye-opening conversation about leadership that goes beyond authority and titles.
Drawing from his diverse leadership journey and hard-earned wisdom, Dr. Chitwood emphasizes:
Resources Mentioned:
Drawing from his diverse leadership journey and hard-earned wisdom, Dr. Chitwood emphasizes:
- The power of embracing individual human motivations over expecting people to “be like you”
- Why trust breaks when leaders don’t align words and actions, and how humility fixes that
- Making one-on-ones the most powerful tool for developing people through training, recognition, accountability, and communication
- Building holistic, inclusive recognition systems that nurture team cohesion and motivation
- Using transparent, 360-degree accountability to create positive, high-performing culture
- Rethinking KPIs to focus on productivity and impact—not just time spent
- Harnessing empathy to engage genuinely and lead effectively
- Integrating faith and purpose in leadership through initiatives like C Suite for Christ
Resources Mentioned:
- Book: Leadership is Not Enough — leadershipisnotenough.com
- Consulting Firm: performanceculture.expert
- C Suite for Christ — csuiteforchrist.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better
podcast network, Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the podcast to
get you there. You can find out more at Teefsbetter
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Speaker 2 (00:11):
The challenge is for most leaders is they expect people
to be them. Well, if those people were them, they'd
have the job, right. They're obviously not right. So there's
a reason that they're not the leader. They're not the manager, right,
and so it is very important for that manager to
recognize the individual nature of all human beings. See, here's
the thing. People work for their reasons, not yours. People
(00:33):
come to the job for their reasons, not yours, right,
and so you have to understand what those reasons are.
So you have the person matters first. Work is a
byproduct of that person. And if you want to get
the most work out of that person, then you need
to work on the person first. Numbers are simply a
representation of human output. Focus on your numbers and you'll
lose your humans. Focus on your humans and your numbers
(00:55):
will grow.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Do you want to be a leader in a constantly
changing world? Our emerging leaders look different, come from various
backgrounds and from all different age groups.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Leadership is changing and it's hard.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
To keep up. But the good news you.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Can be a leader too.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
You can be an e merging leader. Welcome to the
Limitless Leadership Lounge, a try generational conversation for emerging leaders.
Come spend some time with us to discuss leadership from
three angles. The coach Jim Johnson, the professor, Doctor Renumah Kareem,
the host, John Gering a monthly guest. And you get
(01:34):
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sure to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Speaker.
So come on in and make yourself comfortable.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
Well, this week's conversation, we're in for a treat here
in the Limitless Leadership Lounge as we're joined by doctor
Chipwood and we'll get to him in just a moment.
I want to remind you that if you're getting value
from these conversations that we're having here in the lounge,
we'd love it if you let us know about it.
We want this to be a two way conversation. You
tell us by leaving us a review or reaching out
(02:04):
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We'd love a subscription too, So thanks for joining us
today and let's dive right in with coach Jim Johnson,
who will introduce doctor Chitwood.
Speaker 6 (02:22):
Absolutely and I'm looking forward to having doctor Chitwood James Chitwood,
but he likes being called Jim, so we'll mix up
the names today. But I'd like to welcome him and
share a little bit about him. He's a vast experience
in many leadership capacities, so he's an Army infantry veteran,
so thank you for your service. A former university and
(02:43):
college president, professor and administrator, and a sales operation expert
focusing on creating environments to produce long term results. He
has many highlights. I'll highlight a few. He's helped launch
for business ed tech startup companies as early entry executive.
He has also transitioned a nonprofit organization into a for
(03:05):
profit operating environment, ensuring the organization's historical heritage was maintained
by retaining nine two percent of the employee base while
achieving the most extensive customer base in over a decade.
And he's also written a wonderful book called Leadership is
Not Enough. So an intriguing title and a great read
(03:26):
that I read recently and I highly recommend it. So
without further ado, I'm going to go by Jim because
I like Jim too, So Jim, welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Appreciated coach. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm honored.
Speaker 6 (03:37):
I want to start with your service because I know
the Army and all the military branches have a great
leadership foundation. So I'm curious, what did you learn from
your service in the army about leadership.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That it wasn't about the leader. I'll just cut right
to that. You know, here's the thing, here's the thing
everybody believes the military has built on great leadership. The
great leaders are actually an outcome of a system that
produces in So it's a fantastic system that creates great
leaders and here's my evidence for that. Every two years,
your leadership core changes, every four years, your you're enlisting
(04:15):
core changes. So you've got this constant rotation and psycho right,
And if it was all dependent upon a great person,
it would never be sustainable. The military is built upon
the concept that once the first bullet flies, all battle
plans go to loss, and you have to make sure
that everybody knows what's going on so that the next
person in line can step up. It's one of the
(04:35):
things that separates us from the Eastern or some of
the more autocratic militaries is that. And we saw this
in Ukraine, in the in the Russian, in the North Korean,
in the Chinese militaries. Only the leaders know what's going on,
and everybody else just follows directions. You get to a
fork in the road, they say left, everybody goes left.
How did Ukraine stop Russia right off the bat? They
(04:57):
just took out the chain commanders, and nobody else has
had a clue where to go, what to do right,
They just literally stopped in their tracks. Right. The American military,
everybody already knows we're hanging a left right, so that
if you take out our commander, the next one in
line is like, okay, I'm gonna grab those bars, put
them on my collar, and we're going left right because
everybody already knows it. So the American military is a
(05:19):
system that produces great leaders. They're the outcome, not the input.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
That's that's so powerful.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
And then that's all about what being a leader is
and maybe you also touch on this in your book
leadership is not enough. But you're empowering a team. You're
not just telling a team what to do. So when
it comes to leadership, and maybe you're asked about what
it takes to be a leader, and one of the
unconventional or the conventional things that you would say but
not the most effective, is it takes authority and it
(05:48):
takes an authoritative personality. What would you say to that
and why it might not always be the case?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
You know, I totally agree, Listen, leadership matters. It's just
not enough. Absolutely as a leader. You can't be a pushover.
You have to understand your authority. But you need to
wrap it in gentleness. You need to wrap it in humility,
you need to wrap it in compassion. Right. I mean
when when coach was leading a team, he couldn't just say, oh,
do whatever you want, right, he had to say, no,
(06:17):
this is what we'll do, and it's my job to
help you get there. Right therein lies the difference.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
So you know, I'm going to dig into your book.
I got a few things about I've read a lot,
but one of the things that really stood out to
me because I really encourage I do a lot of
leadership presentations as well, and I really encourage leaders to do.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
More one on ones.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
And it's something that you really weave through the book beautifully,
and so I want you to share why you think
one on ones are so important and encouraging leaders to
do it, and then talk a little bit about your format.
I really enjoyed that as well.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Thank you. Yeah. So the one I want is critical.
It is the most important meeting in any organization. And
the truth is, the statistics show that both managers and
employees don't look forward to them. Why because eighty five
percent of your frontline managers receive zero training to be
a manager, right, and so they have no clue what
they're doing, right, So they just go in there and
(07:17):
so their clueless, and so what happens is you get
this real disconnect, right, So nobody looks forward to it
because there's no value. There's no value for the people.
So my model is based upon the concept that that's
where it starts. Performance starts in the one on one. Right,
the manager's sole responsibility, the leader's sole responsibility, is developing
(07:39):
their people, pulling out the value that they have within them, right,
my uncle Roy's favorite saying is the greatest asset of
a company is the undeveloped potential of its people, right.
And so that's what the manager's job is. In that
one on one. That manager needs to be focused on
four elements, and it's the four elements of my model.
(08:00):
Number one it is training right. Number two it is
account is recognition, three, accountability and for communication. Those four
work together as a single strategy to help develop your
employees and your organization. So back to the one on one.
If you've got a manager sitting there, they need to
be doing two things. They need to be having a
(08:21):
quantitative and a qualitative conversation. The quantitative is you have
to be talking about performance, and every employee better be
able to produce their own data on their own performance.
It can't be subjective, it can't be left up to
the manager. The employee needs to be able to hit
print and be able to say this is how I'm doing, boss,
(08:41):
let's talk about it, right. And so then the boss's
job is to help them identify areas for improvement, identify
the areas where they are excelling. And if they're one
of those people who's just getting the job done and excelling. Well,
then maybe they can train their colleague, right, who isn't
getting it done? And when you do that, you start
you start developing social bonds within an organization. And social
(09:05):
bonds are the second most strongest driver of productivity behind
psychological safety. If you've got a good open communication channel
in your organization, well then you've built a foundation for
psychological safety. So now you've got the number one and
number two driving factors behind productivity occurring in your organization.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Okay, so there's yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
And I also want to get into before we dive
in any further into your book and talk about the
track model.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
It does research on you.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
But I'm looking forward to reading the book, have not yet,
but the track the t R A C. Talk a
little bit about what that means and why that's important.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, So this was this was a god moment. I
had zero desire to become a consultant, you know, when
I was pursuing my doctorate and organizational leadership. We find
somebody with the doctorate and organizational leadership might write a
book saying leadership is not enough. Kind of a dichotomy
and the disconnect there, but it's the truth. I was
leading a turnaround, and I had the thing I missed. Okay,
(10:07):
two things I missed working at home. One of them
is breaking bread with people. I miss that, And I
miss a giant whiteboard, right, the big, huge whiteboard that
I could strategize on. So I'm involved in a turnaround
and I've got fourteen hundred salespeople. I've got seven direct
vps reporting to me. It is a massive operation, right,
and we got to turn this thing around, and this
(10:28):
is a big endeavor. And I've got a giant whiteboard
full of stuff we're working on. And I didn't do
this consciously, but it was all in it. There was
five columns training, recognition, accountability, communication, not in that order,
and then miscellaneous stuff. Right, And that was my aha
moment that that's my model. Those are the pieces that
(10:51):
we need to work on to turn this giant organization around.
And we did and we were very, very successful at it.
So that was where my model came from. And I
still had no desire to go out on my own
write a book, become a consultant. And my wife I
married up. I married I married somebody smarter than me,
(11:12):
and she's been telling me for ten years. Jim are
you okay, are you going to go do this consulting
thing I've been telling you to do, or are you
just going to keep grinding away and working for someone else?
And so I got to one of those pivot points
in life and I did a lot of praying and
a lot of discerning, and God gave me that aha moment.
He showed me my military experience. He showed me an
(11:34):
organization that I worked at that had a really good,
strong system for developing people. It showed me that day
I was staring at that whiteboard and all of it clicked,
and that's when the model came together.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
So let's stick in a little bit because you know,
this is a word we hear a lot, but I
think it's neglected often, and that's training. Tell us a
little bit about what you did in that organization to
train your people.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, absolutely, Number one. Training is first department to get cut.
And it's ridiculous because if you want your org to perform,
it has to be a training org, right, And part
of being a training org is you have to be
a learning org. And so those two work together. That's
part of communication. I'm sorry, coach, what was your question?
I got myself on.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
So just tell me what you did. As far as
the training.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Oh yeah, So we had to teach. We had to
go back to the basics. We were in an environment
where seventy five percent of the salespeople were getting fired
on a regular basis because they were having what were
considered non compliant conversations. These people were trying to do
the best job they could and nobody had ever taught
them how not how to do it differently, and so
(12:41):
I quickly recognized that what we had here was a
training issue, and so we went all the way back
to the basics. We taught them how to have conversations.
We taught the managers how to have one on one
meetings right, and how training inter it was interwoven into that,
and taught the managers how to recognize where training was needed,
(13:04):
how to look for resources right, Because it's when you
when you when you build training as as a strategic
imperative of your organization that is directly aligned to your
accountability metrics. And that's the key, Right, you have accountability metrics.
If you don't, you might as well close your doors. Right.
Every organization needs to have accountability metrics, right. The key
(13:24):
here is you have to have training that's aligned to
it so that you can, as one strategy, help your
employees improve when they're uh, you know, job performance isn't
where it needs to be, and so we had to
develop all of this training. The key here is I
consider a training department as the same as when I
(13:45):
was at a university. They're instructional designers, right, They're not
actually the faculty member in the classroom. In this case,
the faculty member in the classroom. The trainer is a
a colleague, or be a supervisor, or see another department,
depending on what it is. That training has to be right,
and the value of that is it creates social bonds
(14:07):
and it should be part of your recognition strategy.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Why because when I'm training you, Jim, not that I
would ever have anything to train you all, but let's
just for the sake of this conversation, pretend I'm giving, right,
And we all know that when we give to someone else,
we intrinsically feel value. Right, suffering from depression, go work
in a soup kitchen, give to someone else less than you.
(14:33):
We've known this for thousands of years, right, that the
best way to lift yourself up is to give to
someone else and lift them up first. Right. And so
when I'm given to you in training, I'm now gaining
from that just intrinsically, right, And I'm invested in your
success because I trained you. You have a stronger social
(14:54):
bond to me because of my giving to you, right.
And so what we're doing here is we're building this
inter reliance upon each other. We're building this social bond. Right.
What we're building is a foundation of a team, right.
And then that's where the performance comes.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
From when it comes to leading a team. I know
there's so many different moving parts and finding the right
team members and training as you just talked about, But
as a leader, what is the role of empathy as
well in team building and that training process where there
may be a steep learning curve?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, I mean empathy is a foundation of compassion. Right.
You really have to understand where someone else is coming from.
I just put a post on this. You know. The
challenge the challenge is for most leaders is they expect
people to be them. Well, if those people were, then
they'd have the job, right. They're obviously not, right, So
there's a reason that they're not the leader, they're not
(15:52):
the manager, right, and so it is very important for
that manager to recognize the individual nature of all human beings. See,
here's the thing. People work for their reasons, not yours.
People come to the job for their reasons, not yours, right,
and so you have to understand what those reasons are
to help them fulfill those reasons by achieving the organization's goals. Right.
(16:14):
And you can't do that if you don't have empathy
in compassion for where that person is coming from.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
Very good point. Well, the r recognition, I believe most
leaders believe it's important, but I believe it's often neglected.
Can you share what you did to help recognize your people?
You know, did you have any kind of process that
(16:40):
you did on a consistent basis?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, So most organizations have a very two dimensional view
on recognition. It's it's pay maybe some bonuses and a trip.
Oh only if you're in sales though, if you're in engineering,
no trips for you, right, Like, it's absolutely ridiculous. How
are you going to create a team environment when you
got your offense being going to Hawaii and your defense
(17:04):
being left in Brooklyn. Nothing wrong with Brooklyn. I'm just
saying it's not Hawaii, right, so you know the key
to a recognition strategy. It has to be holistic. It
has to work for the entire organization. Right. Yes, your
revenue generators may be able to receive a little more
because they're driving the rev but they it shouldn't be
treated like kings while everybody else has poppers. Right, So
(17:25):
you have to have a very robust strategy A. And
that strategy has to involve all departments relatively equally. B.
You have to recognize. Okay, yes, a pad on the
back from a boss goes a long way. A pad
on the back from a coworker in a public meeting
goes further. Right. If we're in a public meeting and
(17:45):
I stand up and I say, there is no way
I could have got this done without John, John, thank
you you moved the needle for this company. Yeah, I
got the wreck, but you did the work that made
it happen. That's powerful, man, and that creates social bonds.
That's peer to peer recognition. Right. Then you have to
have departmental recognition. You have to have departments to be
able to say to another department, I couldn't have got
(18:08):
this done without you. We did this together. Right, So
you have to look at. Your strategy is more than
just here's a neat plaque to hang on your wall. Right.
Plaques are cool, but they don't touch people in the
heart for the long term. Money is not a motivator.
It's a demotivator, but it's not a motivator, right, So
you have to go beyond that. You have to go
at the individual level, boss to employee, you have to
(18:30):
go employee to employee, and you have to go department
to department. Right. And when you when you've got a
strategy that has all three of those in your recognition strategy, well,
now you have a holistic and robust a way to
recognize your your employees.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
So a lot of there's a lot to talk about
team culture. And this is something I know, doctor Chitwood,
that you're really one of the experts on because of
your book and because of the what you built. So
let's talk about team culture from that lends too, because
you talked about the teammate recognizing the teammate in there
that more peer to peer recognition. But that doesn't just
(19:10):
happen without a solid team culture, right, So how do
you build that team culture to inspire people and empower them?
To step up and say, hey, my peer here publicly
did this great thing.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, so well, one, you have to build it into
your strategy. And part of the accountability and the culture
piece is you have to recognize when to let someone go. Right.
If you coach, you know this, you got a star
player on your team who isn't a team member. All
that person's doing is tearing your team down because nobody
(19:44):
else can perform. Right. It's the same thing in organizations.
I've been in organizations where there was a star performer
that the company simply couldn't fathom getting rid of, and
all that star performer did is tear everybody else's performance down. So, yeah,
that one person performed, but no one else did. That
person was at an A level. Everybody else was at
a C and D. I'd rather have an entire team
(20:06):
rocking at a B level together because that's what wins championships.
That's what gets the ball across the finish line, right,
is an entire team of people rocking it at a
good BB plus than one A and a bunch of c's.
So you have to recognize that it is that culture
that is more powerful than any one person, and so
(20:27):
everybody works together or they don't work at all, right,
and so you have to make that a cultural normous
to recognize that we're in this all together. Nobody's more
important than another. I may have strengths in one thing,
somebody else may have strengths in another. Together we are stronger,
and then that is how we go. And then again
(20:47):
that goes back to your recognition and your training strategies, right,
because you build that in and give them the ability
to support each other.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
Let's even go back, you know, because obviously culture is
really important. Made some great points there. But one thing
I really enjoyed about your book. There's a lot of things,
but is that you weave so many great questions throughout
the book, and I think to help some, especially our
young leaders, is can you give us a few examples?
(21:16):
Because bringing the right people on your team is huge
and we've all made mistakes.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I know I have.
Speaker 6 (21:22):
I've picked some people that didn't work out too well
and sometimes you had to then ask them not to
come back. But the concept there is can you give
us maybe a few examples of some questions you would
use in the interview process to really try to get
the right people on in the bus?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Right.
Speaker 7 (21:44):
So, yeah, I'm a real big believer that a person
must be able to self assess if they're ever going
to improve, right, And so I like to ask questions
that dig into can a person identify their own strengths
and witnesses.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
So I ask the questions, you know, what haven't you
done well? And what did you learn from that? And
then what was the outcome? Right? So tell me a challenge,
tell me your actions, and tell me the results.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
So I'm looking to find out and they properly assess
what their weaknesses are, right, and how do they mitigate those?
What are the challenges they faced, and what did they do? Right?
Don't tell me about your strength I already know that.
I'm looking at your paper. Tell me about your weaknesses
and how do you mitigate them? Right? And you can
tell a lot about a person when you start asking
(22:31):
these questions. Because in the world of sales, too often
than not, it's all my weaknesses. I worked too hard.
That is the biggest cop out answer I've ever heard.
But I cannot tell you how many times I've heard it. Right,
So self assessment is key, coach.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
And for somebody, maybe a young leader who is entering
that interview and they're nervous about sharing weaknesses or the
vulnerability that you're looking for as a leader.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
How do we approach that interview?
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Reframe our mindset from we have to impress with all
of our strengths and our accolades and our good qualities
to we have to impress through being vulnerable and being
our authentic selves to see if we're genuinely a good fit.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, John, It's actually a pretty simple question. The person
needs to ask themselves what impresses them more. The person
who was born with a golden ticket and everything worked
great for them are the person who was not born
with a golden ticket, the person who struggled through adversities
and rose up and kept going right. They don't write
very many great stories about the person who everything just
worked out for them in their life, right. The greatest
(23:40):
stories on the planet are the ones about the person
who overcame and then succeeded right. And so that's how
they have to come into this. They have to know
what their weaknesses are and then how to plan to
mitigate them right, know where they failed, and then talk
about how that was okay because it helped them get
to where they are right So that's really the key.
(24:02):
It's a mindset. It's a mindset that my challenges and weaknesses,
assuming A I mitigate my weaknesses and B I've overcome
my challenges, that those become the reason somebody wants to
hire you because it shows that you can deal with adversity. Listen,
work is hard, right, and if you go into the
job expecting it to be peaky great every day, you're
(24:24):
gonna have a miserable life, right, And I think we're
seeing that with so many employees who you know, I mean,
we the last fifty years in this country have been
pretty dang comfortable, right, We haven't had any major strifes. Right,
So we've got a generation of employees, well technically two
they've never known depression or not. Depression's definitely the wrong
(24:45):
word because they've got that in space. But they've never
known real strife. They've never known hunger, right, they've never
known homelessness, they've never known a global right and issue,
and so you know, they haven't they haven't really had
to overcome adversity, and so it's new for them. And
so that goes back to the manager helping them, you know,
caring and helping them recognize that this thing that they're
(25:07):
experiencing in work is okay, let's help you get through it.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
Well. I always kid people that effective leaders, and I'm
going to delve a little bit deeper in your one
on one because I think it's so essential. And I
kid leaders that you're the CQA, the chief question answer.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
So can you give us?
Speaker 6 (25:24):
I know you gave us a couple of ideas with interviewing.
How about when you're doing the one on ones, what
are a few questions you would give people that you
think are pretty powerful?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah? Absolutely, This gets right into the heart of it.
Why are you at work today? Why did you take
this job? What is this job going to help you
achieve in your long term goals? Why are you here?
And what do you want to accomplish? How do we
align what you do at work to help you achieve
those goals? Right? Because that's the key, because once you
(25:56):
can do that, then they're pursuing the organization's goals for
their own personal goals, right. And so while you're talking
about the organization's goals, you're also reminding them of their
personal goals and how it attaches and connects. Right. And
you'll never know that if you don't have it. And listen,
let's just look at this operationally. Let's say somebody's goal
is to buy a new house in another state. Well,
(26:17):
you should know that because it means you're probably gonna
lose them as an employee or their goal. Maybe you know,
I really want to buy a house, or my wife
and I can have a child, or I can have
a child. Right, Okay, Well you better be aware of
that because that means at some point this asset, I
consider all employees' assets, this asset is going to come
unproductive for a period of time. And that's okay, right,
(26:40):
as long as you plan for it, as long as
you know what's going to happen. Right. So when you
ask these questions up front, why are you here, why
do you have this job, what do you hope to accomplish?
What's your long term goal? Where do you want to
go in your life? Right? Then you can align the
organization's goal because listen, some people might just be you
know what, this is just a job for me. I
coach my kid. That's when I get out of here,
(27:00):
and that's the most important thing for me. Amen. Great, Well,
then let's look at your job and make sure you're
able to leave maybe a little bit early so that
you can get on time to that training session or
that practice session. Right, So let's figure out how to
help you accomplish that, right, Like, that's what it's all about,
is recognizing And I can pull the geek out on you, coach.
(27:22):
But you know, if you go all the way back
to the founding principles of capitalism as espoused by Adam Smith,
it's the voluntary participation of labor that aligns with the
business owner's idea that produces a mutually beneficial outcome that
rises all tides. Right. That is what the free market economy,
and that's an outcome. The input is a voluntary participation
(27:44):
of labor aligning with an organization's goals.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
That's a great point. And I just want to share
one thing because one of the things that it took
me a while but I figured out and was very helpful,
and you mentioned that in your one on ones is
really because we team goals as a group, and then
I met with every player individually and found out what
their individual goals and how we can align the individual
(28:10):
and team goals. Because you're absolutely right, if you don't
know what your players, what's motivating them, and how you're
going to align that with the team. It's going to
be a struggle, and so I really try to encourage
leaders that you've got to get to know your people
and know what their motivation. So well said, I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
That, Thank you, coach.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
So you mentioned something that's powerful, doctor Chipwood, and it
was about that team member who you understand may not
be fully all in.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
You know, it's their life's.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Passion to be around the mission, they might have things
outside of work that are important, and that raises the
topic of work life balance. Now, I personally don't like
the term work life balance because and we've heard this
from previous guests too, that really puts work in life
on two opposite ends and there's almost like some sort
(28:59):
of between them. A better term that I know it's
not original to us, but we like to use is
work life integration. So whatever you want to call it,
what are some other ways that you recommend leaders help
their team members achieve that work life integration so that
they can thrive in all those areas that they're passionate
(29:21):
in outside of work, but also be productive while they're
at work.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean we can look at this new
conflict over remote work. You know, so many organizations have
no idea to measure how to do anything but measure
button a seat time and keyboard time. Right. They have
no concept of what productivity really looks like. Right, And
nobody has real goals that they can measure themselves too.
So you don't actually know if someone's performing their job
(29:46):
because why because you never built the metrics for them, right.
So you know, it's recognizing that someone may have to
step out in the middle of the day because something's
going on, and that's okay as long as they come
back and pick up the work, or the next day
they pick it up, right. So it's it's getting to
a point where you recognize that. So the concept is
family first, right, But it doesn't necessarily mean family, for
(30:06):
a person doesn't necessarily have one outside of themselves. But
the concept is the person matters first. Work is a
byproduct of that person, and if you want to get
the most work out of that person, then you need
to work on the person first. Right. So it's that
recognition that I always say numbers are simply a representation
(30:29):
of human output. Focus on your numbers and you'll lose
your humans. Focus on your humans, and your numbers will grow, right,
And so it's recognizing that these numbers, these outcomes you're
looking for are built upon humans voluntarily pursuing them with
earnest right, and so they'll do that when you recognize
(30:49):
the humanity within the numbers.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Good.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
Hey, I want to double a little bit deeper because
we've brought it up and I think pretty much all
leaders under shouldn't understand, but are aware that you've got
to have accountability. Let's delve deeper than help leaders. How
do you build accountability with your team members?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Well, number one, you have to start with clear metrics
and KPIs right. Everybody needs to know what they're being
measured against. No employee should ever walk into an annual
review without already knowing the outcome. It never happened, right.
No employees should walk into their one on one without
already knowing their own performance data. So accountability starts with
clear metrics and clear ways to track it for every
(31:33):
single employee. E right, then, is what is your philosophy
behind accountability? Is accountability a means of identifying poor performance
so that you can get rid of that person, to
hold them accountable or is accountability seen as a transparent
(31:54):
way to identify areas for development? Those are two fundamentally
different ways to look at the exact same situation. Right,
Am I using it to play? Gotcha? Aha? I see this?
Or is it okay? I'm recognizing that we're not getting
the ball moved here. Let's focus on moving this ball
and what is necessary to do that, right, And everybody's
(32:17):
going to be different, everybody's got different strengths. But if
accountability is seen as a transparent process, then you've created
the right culture. In my book is a quote forgive me.
I can't remember who wrote it, but the quote is,
we are accountable for what we don't do as much
as what we do do. So it's like, as leaders,
(32:38):
we are accountable for what we don't do as much
as what we are or something like that. But basically
the concept is what you don't do matters, and you
are accountable for that. Right. Every time you cancel that
one on one, you are failing your employee, right. And
so the key to accountability is it has to be transparent,
and it has to be three hundred and sixty degrees.
(32:59):
And everybody holds me he needs to be held accountable
to it. I can't tell you how many boardrooms and
C suite level conference tables I've sat around where people
in there are talking and acting in ways they would
never let their employees. They go out to dinner and
spend money in ways that they would never let their employees.
Why because they're special. Now you're not. You are wasting
(33:19):
the organization's resources, and you were acting in a way
that you're not holding yourself accountable to the standards of
your organization. Right. I've got this phrase here that you
are who you are when no one's looking. Right, that's
a mantra I live by. And so it's the same
concept as a leader, right that if accountability is gotcha,
you'll never have a positive culture. If accountability is hey,
(33:39):
how do we improve, then you're on the right track.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
It's actually a nice segue that you brought up, KPIs,
because that's where I had one of my questions, because
you had talked about something that really resonated with me
was how sad it is that so many organizations only
measure the button, the seat time, with the remote work,
even with on site work. It's how can we how
can we get to five o'clock. I've worked at organizations
(34:07):
where it's four forty and everybody's packing up and you know,
trying to go as slowly as they can to close
their computer just so they can get to five o'clock.
What a waste of time. And it doesn't help anybody
to measure based on time versus based on productivity. It's
actually hurting everybody. So what are some of the KPIs
maybe a specific KPI for an industry maybe you've worked with,
(34:29):
or just a generic KPI that we can reframe our
mindset so that we're looking at this instead of just
time spent.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, John, that's a hard one. It's it's it's position specific.
But here's the key. You've got your orbitall organizational metrics, right,
where are we going? What's our what's our goal state? Right?
KPI is our key performance indicators? What activities drive to that? Right?
And you need to take that and web it all
the way down to every single employee, right, and so
(35:00):
person at the very front understands how their action relates
all the way up and you need to be talking
about that. So I can't really describe any one KPI.
It would have to be positioned specific right. Sales versus
support versus engineering, right, versus production versus shipping right. These
are all different roles with different types of KPIs. I'm
(35:21):
a real big fan of anything related to quality, right,
So you know the key here really is And I
know I'm not giving you as tight an answer as
you want, because they simply can't john It's it's organization specific,
it's metrics specific, and it's position specific. Right. And so
what organs need to do is literally spend the time
(35:41):
mapping it all the way down and making sure that
every employee has a very clear picture and can walk
into that one on one having a report on how
they're doing. See, because that's the key. So many people
walk into one on one and they have no idea
what's going to be talked about, right, because the manager
is the only one who can produce the performance data.
(36:04):
So they come in there and they're just like, okay,
I hope I'm doing okay right. How uncomfortable is that
Versus the person who's already printed their data. They're already
walking in, they already know how they're doing, and they've
already developed thoughts about it. So then you can actually
have a real conversation with the person about their performance,
because they already know if they're getting done or not right.
(36:25):
And that's really the key there is the ability, the
person's ability to generate their own data on the KPIs
that they're held accountable to.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Okay, so let's take just as an example as a
great answer, But let's take sales just for one example.
Are we talking as far as KPIs are going. Are
we talking just raw output, raw profit? Are we talking about.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Phone calls made?
Speaker 5 (36:50):
Or is it those types of KPIs that we're looking
for rather than just you need to be sitting here
for nine hours a day.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah, I mean the old school of sales is you
know how many dials did you make?
Speaker 6 (37:01):
Right?
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Did you make X number of dials to produce a result? Well, unfortunately,
our world has moved on. It's kind of hard to
reach people on the phone. So I'm not one hundred
percent confident that's the best, best, best measurement. However, I
would say that. So basically what we're talking about here
is you've got your leading indicators and you're lagging indicators. Right,
You're leading indicators, You're leading actions? Are are are your activities?
Speaker 6 (37:24):
Right?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Your phone calls, your emails, your proposals right, your follow
ups right, Well, of the follow ups would be on
the back end, and then it's your follow ups right.
How many proposals are still sitting out there on clothes right?
How many conversations have not been followed up on? Right?
So the key here is you have to be looking
at both your up to the proposal phase, proposal to
(37:49):
contract phase contract to the life of that customer phase right.
Most Unfortunately, for most organizations, sales responsibility ends at the
point of contract tact and now somebody else picks up.
I'm a real big believer in having that carry forward
and so there's a slight overlap with with you know,
(38:09):
normally we have a sales and we have account management right.
Never the twain shall meet, right, And so it's really
important to me that that sales has ownership the whole
way through, even if the other person has primary responsibility.
So it's understanding, it's aligning your KPIs with free proposal
proposed of a contract, contract to the life cycle right
(38:30):
and take them all the way through. And yeah, you
can deal with your basics. Phone calls, emails, proposals, those
are simples. It could be Also, you know a number
of doors that you knock on, right, So for some organizations,
phone calling is not going to get you anywhere. All right, Well,
then how many doors did you knock on? Right? I
was talking with an organization a friend of mine. He said, Jim,
(38:52):
we've actually gone back to letters, and I was like really,
He's like, yeah, nobody's answering the call, nobody's turning phone calls,
and nobody's returning emails. So we went back to paper
and are actually seeing success.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
Like wow, right, it all goes.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
On from that organization. Now they're measuring how many letters
go out.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Wow, it all comes around like the short shorts in basketball.
Now we're getting back to those and the bell bottoms
and the it's all comes around, right. And I also
appreciate what you said, doctor Chitwood about the sales person
following through the whole process. But in order to do that,
you're gonna need some really strong systems in place, right.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, Because here's the thing. Sales is a
lot of work. It's a lot a lot of work.
You're from a task perspective, it's a lot of work.
And then you throw on the denials. Then you throw
on the emotional work, right, That's the hardest part is
the emotional work. Back in the day, when I was
(39:52):
smiling and dialing, I had a friend coworker. We called
him doctor No because he knew exactly how many knows
he had to get for he got a yes. Any
time he got to know, he'd just smile to get bigger,
and he check it off because he knew how many.
Speaker 7 (40:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Like that, emotional work is hard, and that's why sales
is not more most people, because most people can't handle
that type of rejection. Right, So it's important that that
you recognize, uh, you know, the individuality of positions and
and and and and and deal with them a little
differently because of these realities. Good point.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
Well, we always could John and I about the first
person you gotta lead is to lead yourself. So I'm curious.
Tell us a little bit about how you lead yourself?
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Oh lord, h Well, Number one, I really believe in
the mantra that I am who I am when no
one's looking, So I hold myself accountable to that. I'm
that person who you know, if I see someone drop
a hundred dollar bill, I'm going to give it back
to him, even if I need one hundred dollars, because
I just really believe in that. So you know, every morning,
you know, my first fruits are to God. So I
(41:02):
wake up and I pray, and I sit there with
a cup of coffee in silence so that I can,
you know, level set my mind, and then you know,
and then I and then I get into my day.
I pray throughout my day all the time, and then
I close every day with this. You know this, This
reminded me of something I want to bring back back
to the one on one meeting. Every meeting I have,
(41:23):
I don't care if I'm talking to a one on
one or I'm talking to a thousand people in a room.
I always start with getting to know people, what's going
on in their life, what's happening with them. They are
humans on the other side, and I want to get
to know them, right, and so I'll tell them stories
about myself. I remember I was running this orc and
(41:44):
and somebody goes, you know, Jim, every time you tell
a personal story, it just reminds me that you're not
only a human, but you're in it with us, right,
And it's and it's showing that humanity that is so powerful.
So sorry a coach. I know I took us off,
but I wanted to bring up that point to that
new manager, that sit down and talk to your people
first as people before you get into the numbers.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
That's that's really powerful. And you talked about faith.
Speaker 5 (42:09):
I think that's really important, and I know it's really
important to you.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
It's important to the two of us as well.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
What role has your faith played throughout your life and
how will it continue to shape your decisions moving forward?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Oh Man, John, I had a really challenging childhood. I
could write a book on that one. God has been
with me the whole way through my entire life. I
have known I've literally felt the hand of God in
my heart twice through some really challenging times. So my
faith is it's absolute. No one can ever tell me
that there isn't day God. Right. We can argue all
(42:45):
day long whether not just supposed to stand or kneel
or sit at any one particular time, right. But but
you know, so, I'm developing a presentation that I will
be giving a webinar on a monthly basis called Faith
in the Workplace. It's part of my c for Christ
endeavor because I really believe that we can bring faith
(43:05):
into the workplace, not religion different. I'm just talking faith, right,
I'm talking a love of each other. And so you know,
an interesting thing is there's this thing called the Catholic
Social Teachings, and if you got rid of the word Catholic,
it just said social teachings and presented them to most
human beings, everybody'd be like, oh yeah, I totally agree
with all that stuff. Right, So there is way more
(43:27):
that unites us than divides us. So my faith keeps
me focused on that one principle. I focus on what
unites us and brings us together as people, not what
divides us by societal norms.
Speaker 6 (43:43):
Jim, I have one final question, and I just want
to say I'm very grateful for your wonderful insights today.
I've really enjoyed this, and so I'm going to go
back because our goal is to help young and emerging leaders,
and you've shared a lot of great information. But I'm
going to make this really specific because you were a
college president and professor. So what life slash career advice
(44:10):
would you give that person that's getting out you know,
maybe just graduate in college or maybe just didn't even
go to college, but when in after high school? What
advice would you give them to get off to a
good start.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Number one, go buy the book First Break All the
Rules by the Gallup Organization. Very powerful book. It's an
old book. I have their twelve questions in my book.
It's what Gallup, what the Gallup Organization uses for their
state of the workforce and their engagement surveys. These questions
are the foundation of it. Highly recommend you buy this book.
When I back in the days of leading teams, every
(44:47):
time I promoted somebody, I gave them this book and
I signed it and I said, you know rock coment
about so, so you know the key there is is
that go get that book. Number two, recognize your job
is to develop your people. You and your employee share
symbiotic relationship. Your success is their success. Their success is
your success, right, and so your job is to help
them be successful so that you can be successful. Right.
(45:10):
It costs more to replace an employee than to develop one.
So develop your people because A is cheaper financially on
your organization's bottom line, and B it's a lot better
for your productivity. Because the second you lose an asset,
you lose productivity, and you can't expect your other people
to just pick it up right. So that human on
the other side of you is an asset and your
(45:30):
job is to develop them and first break all the rules.
Is a great book to help you understand how to.
Speaker 5 (45:35):
Do that, Doctor James, Shit, would I know, we want
to focus on your book and put that out there.
Leadership is Not Enough. We'll have the link down in
the show notes. How else can we get in touch
with you? Learn about c Suite for Christ and everything
else that you have going on?
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Absolutely, thank you, John. So, yeah, you can go to
Leadership is Not Enough dot com. That'll take you to
the book. You can find me at multiple ways, So
doctor jas Chitwood dot com. My consulting firm is called
Performance Performance Culture dot expert. That's the r L. It's
also the name Performance Culture dot expert. And then now
(46:10):
I am on LinkedIn, doctor James Chitwood, and then c
Suite for Christ is c sweet see dash Suite for
Christ dot com. And then of course we are also
on LinkedIn and the chicag because this Chicago chapter, the
announcement just went out last week. This is all brand new.
We are in development of our web page and all
(46:33):
the support material to get me rock. And so we're
gonna have a big meeting up in in Milwaukee. Anybody's
capable of going up there from Chicago, please come join us.
We're gonna have a luncheon. I'll be giving my keynote
on faith in the workplace and I look forward to,
you know, sharing fellowship with you all. That's our purpose,
our purpose. We're not a networking group, We're a fellowship group.
We're here to pray and lift each other up. We're
(46:54):
we like to say, we're a spiritual gas station ready
to fill everybody up. So power to you, wish you
all the best, the luck in life.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Doctor James Chitwoode and c Suite for Christ.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
We have that all down in the show notes, so
just scroll down and click on any of those links.
Speaker 4 (47:07):
To get in touch.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
And then Leadership is not enough as the book you
definitely got to check out.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
Thanks so much, Doctor Chipwood for your time today.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Thank you, John, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Thank you for joining us this week at the Limitless
Leadership Lounge. To listen to this episode again and to
find previous episodes, check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and spreakare You can also get in on the conversation.
Find us on Facebook and Instagram, then tell three of
your friends to join it as well. Coach Brnuma and John.
We'll be back again next week for another try generational
(47:37):
leadership discussion. We'll talk to you then on the Limitless
Leadership Lounge
This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better
podcast network, Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the podcast to
get you there. You can find out more at Teefsbetter
dot com slash podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The challenge is for most leaders is they expect people
to be them. Well, if those people were them, they'd
have the job, right. They're obviously not right. So there's
a reason that they're not the leader. They're not the manager, right,
and so it is very important for that manager to
recognize the individual nature of all human beings. See, here's
the thing. People work for their reasons, not yours. People
(00:33):
come to the job for their reasons, not yours, right,
and so you have to understand what those reasons are.
So you have the person matters first. Work is a
byproduct of that person. And if you want to get
the most work out of that person, then you need
to work on the person first. Numbers are simply a
representation of human output. Focus on your numbers and you'll
lose your humans. Focus on your humans and your numbers
(00:55):
will grow.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Do you want to be a leader in a constantly
changing world? Our emerging leaders look different, come from various
backgrounds and from all different age groups.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Leadership is changing and it's hard.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
To keep up. But the good news you.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Can be a leader too.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
You can be an e merging leader. Welcome to the
Limitless Leadership Lounge, a try generational conversation for emerging leaders.
Come spend some time with us to discuss leadership from
three angles. The coach Jim Johnson, the professor, Doctor Renumah Kareem,
the host, John Gering a monthly guest. And you get
(01:34):
in on the conversation on Facebook and Instagram, and be
sure to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Speaker.
So come on in and make yourself comfortable.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
Well, this week's conversation, we're in for a treat here
in the Limitless Leadership Lounge as we're joined by doctor
Chipwood and we'll get to him in just a moment.
I want to remind you that if you're getting value
from these conversations that we're having here in the lounge,
we'd love it if you let us know about it.
We want this to be a two way conversation. You
tell us by leaving us a review or reaching out
(02:04):
via our website Limitless Leadership podcast dot com, or by
leaving us a review on all of those podcast platforms
wherever you're listening to or up on YouTube as well.
We'd love a subscription too, So thanks for joining us
today and let's dive right in with coach Jim Johnson,
who will introduce doctor Chitwood.
Speaker 6 (02:22):
Absolutely and I'm looking forward to having doctor Chitwood James Chitwood,
but he likes being called Jim, so we'll mix up
the names today. But I'd like to welcome him and
share a little bit about him. He's a vast experience
in many leadership capacities, so he's an Army infantry veteran,
so thank you for your service. A former university and
(02:43):
college president, professor and administrator, and a sales operation expert
focusing on creating environments to produce long term results. He
has many highlights. I'll highlight a few. He's helped launch
for business ed tech startup companies as early entry executive.
He has also transitioned a nonprofit organization into a for
(03:05):
profit operating environment, ensuring the organization's historical heritage was maintained
by retaining nine two percent of the employee base while
achieving the most extensive customer base in over a decade.
And he's also written a wonderful book called Leadership is
Not Enough. So an intriguing title and a great read
(03:26):
that I read recently and I highly recommend it. So
without further ado, I'm going to go by Jim because
I like Jim too, So Jim, welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Appreciated coach. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm honored.
Speaker 6 (03:37):
I want to start with your service because I know
the Army and all the military branches have a great
leadership foundation. So I'm curious, what did you learn from
your service in the army about leadership.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That it wasn't about the leader. I'll just cut right
to that. You know, here's the thing, here's the thing
everybody believes the military has built on great leadership. The
great leaders are actually an outcome of a system that
produces in So it's a fantastic system that creates great
leaders and here's my evidence for that. Every two years,
your leadership core changes, every four years, your you're enlisting
(04:15):
core changes. So you've got this constant rotation and psycho right,
And if it was all dependent upon a great person,
it would never be sustainable. The military is built upon
the concept that once the first bullet flies, all battle
plans go to loss, and you have to make sure
that everybody knows what's going on so that the next
person in line can step up. It's one of the
(04:35):
things that separates us from the Eastern or some of
the more autocratic militaries is that. And we saw this
in Ukraine, in the in the Russian, in the North Korean,
in the Chinese militaries. Only the leaders know what's going on,
and everybody else just follows directions. You get to a
fork in the road, they say left, everybody goes left.
How did Ukraine stop Russia right off the bat? They
(04:57):
just took out the chain commanders, and nobody else has
had a clue where to go, what to do right,
They just literally stopped in their tracks. Right. The American military,
everybody already knows we're hanging a left right, so that
if you take out our commander, the next one in
line is like, okay, I'm gonna grab those bars, put
them on my collar, and we're going left right because
everybody already knows it. So the American military is a
(05:19):
system that produces great leaders. They're the outcome, not the input.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
That's that's so powerful.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
And then that's all about what being a leader is
and maybe you also touch on this in your book
leadership is not enough. But you're empowering a team. You're
not just telling a team what to do. So when
it comes to leadership, and maybe you're asked about what
it takes to be a leader, and one of the
unconventional or the conventional things that you would say but
not the most effective, is it takes authority and it
(05:48):
takes an authoritative personality. What would you say to that
and why it might not always be the case?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
You know, I totally agree, Listen, leadership matters. It's just
not enough. Absolutely as a leader. You can't be a pushover.
You have to understand your authority. But you need to
wrap it in gentleness. You need to wrap it in humility,
you need to wrap it in compassion. Right. I mean
when when coach was leading a team, he couldn't just say, oh,
do whatever you want, right, he had to say, no,
(06:17):
this is what we'll do, and it's my job to
help you get there. Right therein lies the difference.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
So you know, I'm going to dig into your book.
I got a few things about I've read a lot,
but one of the things that really stood out to
me because I really encourage I do a lot of
leadership presentations as well, and I really encourage leaders to do.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
More one on ones.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
And it's something that you really weave through the book beautifully,
and so I want you to share why you think
one on ones are so important and encouraging leaders to
do it, and then talk a little bit about your format.
I really enjoyed that as well.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Thank you. Yeah. So the one I want is critical.
It is the most important meeting in any organization. And
the truth is, the statistics show that both managers and
employees don't look forward to them. Why because eighty five
percent of your frontline managers receive zero training to be
a manager, right, and so they have no clue what
they're doing, right, So they just go in there and
(07:17):
so their clueless, and so what happens is you get
this real disconnect, right, So nobody looks forward to it
because there's no value. There's no value for the people.
So my model is based upon the concept that that's
where it starts. Performance starts in the one on one. Right,
the manager's sole responsibility, the leader's sole responsibility, is developing
(07:39):
their people, pulling out the value that they have within them, right,
my uncle Roy's favorite saying is the greatest asset of
a company is the undeveloped potential of its people, right.
And so that's what the manager's job is. In that
one on one. That manager needs to be focused on
four elements, and it's the four elements of my model.
(08:00):
Number one it is training right. Number two it is
account is recognition, three, accountability and for communication. Those four
work together as a single strategy to help develop your
employees and your organization. So back to the one on one.
If you've got a manager sitting there, they need to
be doing two things. They need to be having a
(08:21):
quantitative and a qualitative conversation. The quantitative is you have
to be talking about performance, and every employee better be
able to produce their own data on their own performance.
It can't be subjective, it can't be left up to
the manager. The employee needs to be able to hit
print and be able to say this is how I'm doing, boss,
(08:41):
let's talk about it, right. And so then the boss's
job is to help them identify areas for improvement, identify
the areas where they are excelling. And if they're one
of those people who's just getting the job done and excelling. Well,
then maybe they can train their colleague, right, who isn't
getting it done? And when you do that, you start
you start developing social bonds within an organization. And social
(09:05):
bonds are the second most strongest driver of productivity behind
psychological safety. If you've got a good open communication channel
in your organization, well then you've built a foundation for
psychological safety. So now you've got the number one and
number two driving factors behind productivity occurring in your organization.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Okay, so there's yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
And I also want to get into before we dive
in any further into your book and talk about the
track model.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
It does research on you.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
But I'm looking forward to reading the book, have not yet,
but the track the t R A C. Talk a
little bit about what that means and why that's important.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, So this was this was a god moment. I
had zero desire to become a consultant, you know, when
I was pursuing my doctorate and organizational leadership. We find
somebody with the doctorate and organizational leadership might write a
book saying leadership is not enough. Kind of a dichotomy
and the disconnect there, but it's the truth. I was
leading a turnaround, and I had the thing I missed. Okay,
(10:07):
two things I missed working at home. One of them
is breaking bread with people. I miss that, And I
miss a giant whiteboard, right, the big, huge whiteboard that
I could strategize on. So I'm involved in a turnaround
and I've got fourteen hundred salespeople. I've got seven direct
vps reporting to me. It is a massive operation, right,
and we got to turn this thing around, and this
(10:28):
is a big endeavor. And I've got a giant whiteboard
full of stuff we're working on. And I didn't do
this consciously, but it was all in it. There was
five columns training, recognition, accountability, communication, not in that order,
and then miscellaneous stuff. Right, And that was my aha
moment that that's my model. Those are the pieces that
(10:51):
we need to work on to turn this giant organization around.
And we did and we were very, very successful at it.
So that was where my model came from. And I
still had no desire to go out on my own
write a book, become a consultant. And my wife I
married up. I married I married somebody smarter than me,
(11:12):
and she's been telling me for ten years. Jim are
you okay, are you going to go do this consulting
thing I've been telling you to do, or are you
just going to keep grinding away and working for someone else?
And so I got to one of those pivot points
in life and I did a lot of praying and
a lot of discerning, and God gave me that aha moment.
He showed me my military experience. He showed me an
(11:34):
organization that I worked at that had a really good,
strong system for developing people. It showed me that day
I was staring at that whiteboard and all of it clicked,
and that's when the model came together.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
So let's stick in a little bit because you know,
this is a word we hear a lot, but I
think it's neglected often, and that's training. Tell us a
little bit about what you did in that organization to
train your people.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, absolutely, Number one. Training is first department to get cut.
And it's ridiculous because if you want your org to perform,
it has to be a training org, right, And part
of being a training org is you have to be
a learning org. And so those two work together. That's
part of communication. I'm sorry, coach, what was your question?
I got myself on.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
So just tell me what you did. As far as
the training.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Oh yeah, So we had to teach. We had to
go back to the basics. We were in an environment
where seventy five percent of the salespeople were getting fired
on a regular basis because they were having what were
considered non compliant conversations. These people were trying to do
the best job they could and nobody had ever taught
them how not how to do it differently, and so
(12:41):
I quickly recognized that what we had here was a
training issue, and so we went all the way back
to the basics. We taught them how to have conversations.
We taught the managers how to have one on one
meetings right, and how training inter it was interwoven into that,
and taught the managers how to recognize where training was needed,
(13:04):
how to look for resources right, Because it's when you
when you when you build training as as a strategic
imperative of your organization that is directly aligned to your
accountability metrics. And that's the key, Right, you have accountability metrics.
If you don't, you might as well close your doors. Right.
Every organization needs to have accountability metrics, right. The key
(13:24):
here is you have to have training that's aligned to
it so that you can, as one strategy, help your
employees improve when they're uh, you know, job performance isn't
where it needs to be, and so we had to
develop all of this training. The key here is I
consider a training department as the same as when I
(13:45):
was at a university. They're instructional designers, right, They're not
actually the faculty member in the classroom. In this case,
the faculty member in the classroom. The trainer is a
a colleague, or be a supervisor, or see another department,
depending on what it is. That training has to be right,
and the value of that is it creates social bonds
(14:07):
and it should be part of your recognition strategy.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Why because when I'm training you, Jim, not that I
would ever have anything to train you all, but let's
just for the sake of this conversation, pretend I'm giving, right,
And we all know that when we give to someone else,
we intrinsically feel value. Right, suffering from depression, go work
in a soup kitchen, give to someone else less than you.
(14:33):
We've known this for thousands of years, right, that the
best way to lift yourself up is to give to
someone else and lift them up first. Right. And so
when I'm given to you in training, I'm now gaining
from that just intrinsically, right, And I'm invested in your
success because I trained you. You have a stronger social
(14:54):
bond to me because of my giving to you, right.
And so what we're doing here is we're building this
inter reliance upon each other. We're building this social bond. Right.
What we're building is a foundation of a team, right.
And then that's where the performance comes.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
From when it comes to leading a team. I know
there's so many different moving parts and finding the right
team members and training as you just talked about, But
as a leader, what is the role of empathy as
well in team building and that training process where there
may be a steep learning curve?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, I mean empathy is a foundation of compassion. Right.
You really have to understand where someone else is coming from.
I just put a post on this. You know. The
challenge the challenge is for most leaders is they expect
people to be them. Well, if those people were, then
they'd have the job, right. They're obviously not, right, So
there's a reason that they're not the leader, they're not
(15:52):
the manager, right, and so it is very important for
that manager to recognize the individual nature of all human beings. See,
here's the thing. People work for their reasons, not yours.
People come to the job for their reasons, not yours, right,
and so you have to understand what those reasons are
to help them fulfill those reasons by achieving the organization's goals. Right.
(16:14):
And you can't do that if you don't have empathy
in compassion for where that person is coming from.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
Very good point. Well, the r recognition, I believe most
leaders believe it's important, but I believe it's often neglected.
Can you share what you did to help recognize your people?
You know, did you have any kind of process that
(16:40):
you did on a consistent basis?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, So most organizations have a very two dimensional view
on recognition. It's it's pay maybe some bonuses and a trip.
Oh only if you're in sales though, if you're in engineering,
no trips for you, right, Like, it's absolutely ridiculous. How
are you going to create a team environment when you
got your offense being going to Hawaii and your defense
(17:04):
being left in Brooklyn. Nothing wrong with Brooklyn. I'm just
saying it's not Hawaii, right, so you know the key
to a recognition strategy. It has to be holistic. It
has to work for the entire organization. Right. Yes, your
revenue generators may be able to receive a little more
because they're driving the rev but they it shouldn't be
treated like kings while everybody else has poppers. Right, So
(17:25):
you have to have a very robust strategy A. And
that strategy has to involve all departments relatively equally. B.
You have to recognize. Okay, yes, a pad on the
back from a boss goes a long way. A pad
on the back from a coworker in a public meeting
goes further. Right. If we're in a public meeting and
(17:45):
I stand up and I say, there is no way
I could have got this done without John, John, thank
you you moved the needle for this company. Yeah, I
got the wreck, but you did the work that made
it happen. That's powerful, man, and that creates social bonds.
That's peer to peer recognition. Right. Then you have to
have departmental recognition. You have to have departments to be
able to say to another department, I couldn't have got
(18:08):
this done without you. We did this together. Right, So
you have to look at. Your strategy is more than
just here's a neat plaque to hang on your wall. Right.
Plaques are cool, but they don't touch people in the
heart for the long term. Money is not a motivator.
It's a demotivator, but it's not a motivator, right, So
you have to go beyond that. You have to go
at the individual level, boss to employee, you have to
(18:30):
go employee to employee, and you have to go department
to department. Right. And when you when you've got a
strategy that has all three of those in your recognition strategy, well,
now you have a holistic and robust a way to
recognize your your employees.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
So a lot of there's a lot to talk about
team culture. And this is something I know, doctor Chitwood,
that you're really one of the experts on because of
your book and because of the what you built. So
let's talk about team culture from that lends too, because
you talked about the teammate recognizing the teammate in there
that more peer to peer recognition. But that doesn't just
(19:10):
happen without a solid team culture, right, So how do
you build that team culture to inspire people and empower them?
To step up and say, hey, my peer here publicly
did this great thing.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, so well, one, you have to build it into
your strategy. And part of the accountability and the culture
piece is you have to recognize when to let someone go. Right.
If you coach, you know this, you got a star
player on your team who isn't a team member. All
that person's doing is tearing your team down because nobody
(19:44):
else can perform. Right. It's the same thing in organizations.
I've been in organizations where there was a star performer
that the company simply couldn't fathom getting rid of, and
all that star performer did is tear everybody else's performance down. So, yeah,
that one person performed, but no one else did. That
person was at an A level. Everybody else was at
a C and D. I'd rather have an entire team
(20:06):
rocking at a B level together because that's what wins championships.
That's what gets the ball across the finish line, right,
is an entire team of people rocking it at a
good BB plus than one A and a bunch of c's.
So you have to recognize that it is that culture
that is more powerful than any one person, and so
(20:27):
everybody works together or they don't work at all, right,
and so you have to make that a cultural normous
to recognize that we're in this all together. Nobody's more
important than another. I may have strengths in one thing,
somebody else may have strengths in another. Together we are stronger,
and then that is how we go. And then again
(20:47):
that goes back to your recognition and your training strategies, right,
because you build that in and give them the ability
to support each other.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
Let's even go back, you know, because obviously culture is
really important. Made some great points there. But one thing
I really enjoyed about your book. There's a lot of things,
but is that you weave so many great questions throughout
the book, and I think to help some, especially our
young leaders, is can you give us a few examples?
(21:16):
Because bringing the right people on your team is huge
and we've all made mistakes.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I know I have.
Speaker 6 (21:22):
I've picked some people that didn't work out too well
and sometimes you had to then ask them not to
come back. But the concept there is can you give
us maybe a few examples of some questions you would
use in the interview process to really try to get
the right people on in the bus?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Right.
Speaker 7 (21:44):
So, yeah, I'm a real big believer that a person
must be able to self assess if they're ever going
to improve, right, And so I like to ask questions
that dig into can a person identify their own strengths
and witnesses.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
So I ask the questions, you know, what haven't you
done well? And what did you learn from that? And
then what was the outcome? Right? So tell me a challenge,
tell me your actions, and tell me the results.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
So I'm looking to find out and they properly assess
what their weaknesses are, right, and how do they mitigate those?
What are the challenges they faced, and what did they do? Right?
Don't tell me about your strength I already know that.
I'm looking at your paper. Tell me about your weaknesses
and how do you mitigate them? Right? And you can
tell a lot about a person when you start asking
(22:31):
these questions. Because in the world of sales, too often
than not, it's all my weaknesses. I worked too hard.
That is the biggest cop out answer I've ever heard.
But I cannot tell you how many times I've heard it. Right,
So self assessment is key, coach.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
And for somebody, maybe a young leader who is entering
that interview and they're nervous about sharing weaknesses or the
vulnerability that you're looking for as a leader.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
How do we approach that interview?
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Reframe our mindset from we have to impress with all
of our strengths and our accolades and our good qualities
to we have to impress through being vulnerable and being
our authentic selves to see if we're genuinely a good fit.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, John, It's actually a pretty simple question. The person
needs to ask themselves what impresses them more. The person
who was born with a golden ticket and everything worked
great for them are the person who was not born
with a golden ticket, the person who struggled through adversities
and rose up and kept going right. They don't write
very many great stories about the person who everything just
worked out for them in their life, right. The greatest
(23:40):
stories on the planet are the ones about the person
who overcame and then succeeded right. And so that's how
they have to come into this. They have to know
what their weaknesses are and then how to plan to
mitigate them right, know where they failed, and then talk
about how that was okay because it helped them get
to where they are right So that's really the key.
(24:02):
It's a mindset. It's a mindset that my challenges and weaknesses,
assuming A I mitigate my weaknesses and B I've overcome
my challenges, that those become the reason somebody wants to
hire you because it shows that you can deal with adversity. Listen,
work is hard, right, and if you go into the
job expecting it to be peaky great every day, you're
(24:24):
gonna have a miserable life, right, And I think we're
seeing that with so many employees who you know, I mean,
we the last fifty years in this country have been
pretty dang comfortable, right, We haven't had any major strifes. Right,
So we've got a generation of employees, well technically two
they've never known depression or not. Depression's definitely the wrong
(24:45):
word because they've got that in space. But they've never
known real strife. They've never known hunger, right, they've never
known homelessness, they've never known a global right and issue,
and so you know, they haven't they haven't really had
to overcome adversity, and so it's new for them. And
so that goes back to the manager helping them, you know,
caring and helping them recognize that this thing that they're
(25:07):
experiencing in work is okay, let's help you get through it.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
Well. I always kid people that effective leaders, and I'm
going to delve a little bit deeper in your one
on one because I think it's so essential. And I
kid leaders that you're the CQA, the chief question answer.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
So can you give us?
Speaker 6 (25:24):
I know you gave us a couple of ideas with interviewing.
How about when you're doing the one on ones, what
are a few questions you would give people that you
think are pretty powerful?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah? Absolutely, This gets right into the heart of it.
Why are you at work today? Why did you take
this job? What is this job going to help you
achieve in your long term goals? Why are you here?
And what do you want to accomplish? How do we
align what you do at work to help you achieve
those goals? Right? Because that's the key, because once you
(25:56):
can do that, then they're pursuing the organization's goals for
their own personal goals, right. And so while you're talking
about the organization's goals, you're also reminding them of their
personal goals and how it attaches and connects. Right. And
you'll never know that if you don't have it. And listen,
let's just look at this operationally. Let's say somebody's goal
is to buy a new house in another state. Well,
(26:17):
you should know that because it means you're probably gonna
lose them as an employee or their goal. Maybe you know,
I really want to buy a house, or my wife
and I can have a child, or I can have
a child. Right, Okay, Well you better be aware of
that because that means at some point this asset, I
consider all employees' assets, this asset is going to come
unproductive for a period of time. And that's okay, right,
(26:40):
as long as you plan for it, as long as
you know what's going to happen. Right. So when you
ask these questions up front, why are you here, why
do you have this job, what do you hope to accomplish?
What's your long term goal? Where do you want to
go in your life? Right? Then you can align the
organization's goal because listen, some people might just be you
know what, this is just a job for me. I
coach my kid. That's when I get out of here,
(27:00):
and that's the most important thing for me. Amen. Great, Well,
then let's look at your job and make sure you're
able to leave maybe a little bit early so that
you can get on time to that training session or
that practice session. Right, So let's figure out how to
help you accomplish that, right, Like, that's what it's all about,
is recognizing And I can pull the geek out on you, coach.
(27:22):
But you know, if you go all the way back
to the founding principles of capitalism as espoused by Adam Smith,
it's the voluntary participation of labor that aligns with the
business owner's idea that produces a mutually beneficial outcome that
rises all tides. Right. That is what the free market economy,
and that's an outcome. The input is a voluntary participation
(27:44):
of labor aligning with an organization's goals.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
That's a great point. And I just want to share
one thing because one of the things that it took
me a while but I figured out and was very helpful,
and you mentioned that in your one on ones is
really because we team goals as a group, and then
I met with every player individually and found out what
their individual goals and how we can align the individual
(28:10):
and team goals. Because you're absolutely right, if you don't
know what your players, what's motivating them, and how you're
going to align that with the team. It's going to
be a struggle, and so I really try to encourage
leaders that you've got to get to know your people
and know what their motivation. So well said, I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
That, Thank you, coach.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
So you mentioned something that's powerful, doctor Chipwood, and it
was about that team member who you understand may not
be fully all in.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
You know, it's their life's.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Passion to be around the mission, they might have things
outside of work that are important, and that raises the
topic of work life balance. Now, I personally don't like
the term work life balance because and we've heard this
from previous guests too, that really puts work in life
on two opposite ends and there's almost like some sort
(28:59):
of between them. A better term that I know it's
not original to us, but we like to use is
work life integration. So whatever you want to call it,
what are some other ways that you recommend leaders help
their team members achieve that work life integration so that
they can thrive in all those areas that they're passionate
(29:21):
in outside of work, but also be productive while they're
at work.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean we can look at this new
conflict over remote work. You know, so many organizations have
no idea to measure how to do anything but measure
button a seat time and keyboard time. Right. They have
no concept of what productivity really looks like. Right, And
nobody has real goals that they can measure themselves too.
So you don't actually know if someone's performing their job
(29:46):
because why because you never built the metrics for them, right.
So you know, it's recognizing that someone may have to
step out in the middle of the day because something's
going on, and that's okay as long as they come
back and pick up the work, or the next day
they pick it up, right. So it's it's getting to
a point where you recognize that. So the concept is
family first, right, But it doesn't necessarily mean family, for
(30:06):
a person doesn't necessarily have one outside of themselves. But
the concept is the person matters first. Work is a
byproduct of that person, and if you want to get
the most work out of that person, then you need
to work on the person first. Right. So it's that
recognition that I always say numbers are simply a representation
(30:29):
of human output. Focus on your numbers and you'll lose
your humans. Focus on your humans, and your numbers will grow, right,
And so it's recognizing that these numbers, these outcomes you're
looking for are built upon humans voluntarily pursuing them with
earnest right, and so they'll do that when you recognize
(30:49):
the humanity within the numbers.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Good.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
Hey, I want to double a little bit deeper because
we've brought it up and I think pretty much all
leaders under shouldn't understand, but are aware that you've got
to have accountability. Let's delve deeper than help leaders. How
do you build accountability with your team members?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Well, number one, you have to start with clear metrics
and KPIs right. Everybody needs to know what they're being
measured against. No employee should ever walk into an annual
review without already knowing the outcome. It never happened, right.
No employees should walk into their one on one without
already knowing their own performance data. So accountability starts with
clear metrics and clear ways to track it for every
(31:33):
single employee. E right, then, is what is your philosophy
behind accountability? Is accountability a means of identifying poor performance
so that you can get rid of that person, to
hold them accountable or is accountability seen as a transparent
(31:54):
way to identify areas for development? Those are two fundamentally
different ways to look at the exact same situation. Right,
Am I using it to play? Gotcha? Aha? I see this?
Or is it okay? I'm recognizing that we're not getting
the ball moved here. Let's focus on moving this ball
and what is necessary to do that, right, And everybody's
(32:17):
going to be different, everybody's got different strengths. But if
accountability is seen as a transparent process, then you've created
the right culture. In my book is a quote forgive me.
I can't remember who wrote it, but the quote is,
we are accountable for what we don't do as much
as what we do do. So it's like, as leaders,
(32:38):
we are accountable for what we don't do as much
as what we are or something like that. But basically
the concept is what you don't do matters, and you
are accountable for that. Right. Every time you cancel that
one on one, you are failing your employee, right. And
so the key to accountability is it has to be transparent,
and it has to be three hundred and sixty degrees.
(32:59):
And everybody holds me he needs to be held accountable
to it. I can't tell you how many boardrooms and
C suite level conference tables I've sat around where people
in there are talking and acting in ways they would
never let their employees. They go out to dinner and
spend money in ways that they would never let their employees.
Why because they're special. Now you're not. You are wasting
(33:19):
the organization's resources, and you were acting in a way
that you're not holding yourself accountable to the standards of
your organization. Right. I've got this phrase here that you
are who you are when no one's looking. Right, that's
a mantra I live by. And so it's the same
concept as a leader, right that if accountability is gotcha,
you'll never have a positive culture. If accountability is hey,
(33:39):
how do we improve, then you're on the right track.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
It's actually a nice segue that you brought up, KPIs,
because that's where I had one of my questions, because
you had talked about something that really resonated with me
was how sad it is that so many organizations only
measure the button, the seat time, with the remote work,
even with on site work. It's how can we how
can we get to five o'clock. I've worked at organizations
(34:07):
where it's four forty and everybody's packing up and you know,
trying to go as slowly as they can to close
their computer just so they can get to five o'clock.
What a waste of time. And it doesn't help anybody
to measure based on time versus based on productivity. It's
actually hurting everybody. So what are some of the KPIs
maybe a specific KPI for an industry maybe you've worked with,
(34:29):
or just a generic KPI that we can reframe our
mindset so that we're looking at this instead of just
time spent.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, John, that's a hard one. It's it's it's position specific.
But here's the key. You've got your orbitall organizational metrics, right,
where are we going? What's our what's our goal state? Right?
KPI is our key performance indicators? What activities drive to that? Right?
And you need to take that and web it all
the way down to every single employee, right, and so
(35:00):
person at the very front understands how their action relates
all the way up and you need to be talking
about that. So I can't really describe any one KPI.
It would have to be positioned specific right. Sales versus
support versus engineering, right, versus production versus shipping right. These
are all different roles with different types of KPIs. I'm
(35:21):
a real big fan of anything related to quality, right,
So you know the key here really is And I
know I'm not giving you as tight an answer as
you want, because they simply can't john It's it's organization specific,
it's metrics specific, and it's position specific. Right. And so
what organs need to do is literally spend the time
(35:41):
mapping it all the way down and making sure that
every employee has a very clear picture and can walk
into that one on one having a report on how
they're doing. See, because that's the key. So many people
walk into one on one and they have no idea
what's going to be talked about, right, because the manager
is the only one who can produce the performance data.
(36:04):
So they come in there and they're just like, okay,
I hope I'm doing okay right. How uncomfortable is that
Versus the person who's already printed their data. They're already
walking in, they already know how they're doing, and they've
already developed thoughts about it. So then you can actually
have a real conversation with the person about their performance,
because they already know if they're getting done or not right.
(36:25):
And that's really the key there is the ability, the
person's ability to generate their own data on the KPIs
that they're held accountable to.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Okay, so let's take just as an example as a
great answer, But let's take sales just for one example.
Are we talking as far as KPIs are going. Are
we talking just raw output, raw profit? Are we talking about.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Phone calls made?
Speaker 5 (36:50):
Or is it those types of KPIs that we're looking
for rather than just you need to be sitting here
for nine hours a day.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah, I mean the old school of sales is you
know how many dials did you make?
Speaker 6 (37:01):
Right?
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Did you make X number of dials to produce a result? Well, unfortunately,
our world has moved on. It's kind of hard to
reach people on the phone. So I'm not one hundred
percent confident that's the best, best, best measurement. However, I
would say that. So basically what we're talking about here
is you've got your leading indicators and you're lagging indicators. Right,
You're leading indicators, You're leading actions? Are are are your activities?
Speaker 6 (37:24):
Right?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Your phone calls, your emails, your proposals right, your follow
ups right, Well, of the follow ups would be on
the back end, and then it's your follow ups right.
How many proposals are still sitting out there on clothes right?
How many conversations have not been followed up on? Right?
So the key here is you have to be looking
at both your up to the proposal phase, proposal to
(37:49):
contract phase contract to the life of that customer phase right.
Most Unfortunately, for most organizations, sales responsibility ends at the
point of contract tact and now somebody else picks up.
I'm a real big believer in having that carry forward
and so there's a slight overlap with with you know,
(38:09):
normally we have a sales and we have account management right.
Never the twain shall meet, right, And so it's really
important to me that that sales has ownership the whole
way through, even if the other person has primary responsibility.
So it's understanding, it's aligning your KPIs with free proposal
proposed of a contract, contract to the life cycle right
(38:30):
and take them all the way through. And yeah, you
can deal with your basics. Phone calls, emails, proposals, those
are simples. It could be Also, you know a number
of doors that you knock on, right, So for some organizations,
phone calling is not going to get you anywhere. All right, Well,
then how many doors did you knock on? Right? I
was talking with an organization a friend of mine. He said, Jim,
(38:52):
we've actually gone back to letters, and I was like really,
He's like, yeah, nobody's answering the call, nobody's turning phone calls,
and nobody's returning emails. So we went back to paper
and are actually seeing success.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
Like wow, right, it all goes.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
On from that organization. Now they're measuring how many letters
go out.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Wow, it all comes around like the short shorts in basketball.
Now we're getting back to those and the bell bottoms
and the it's all comes around, right. And I also
appreciate what you said, doctor Chitwood about the sales person
following through the whole process. But in order to do that,
you're gonna need some really strong systems in place, right.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, Because here's the thing. Sales is a
lot of work. It's a lot a lot of work.
You're from a task perspective, it's a lot of work.
And then you throw on the denials. Then you throw
on the emotional work, right, That's the hardest part is
the emotional work. Back in the day, when I was
(39:52):
smiling and dialing, I had a friend coworker. We called
him doctor No because he knew exactly how many knows
he had to get for he got a yes. Any
time he got to know, he'd just smile to get bigger,
and he check it off because he knew how many.
Speaker 7 (40:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Like that, emotional work is hard, and that's why sales
is not more most people, because most people can't handle
that type of rejection. Right, So it's important that that
you recognize, uh, you know, the individuality of positions and
and and and and and deal with them a little
differently because of these realities. Good point.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
Well, we always could John and I about the first
person you gotta lead is to lead yourself. So I'm curious.
Tell us a little bit about how you lead yourself?
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Oh lord, h Well, Number one, I really believe in
the mantra that I am who I am when no
one's looking, So I hold myself accountable to that. I'm
that person who you know, if I see someone drop
a hundred dollar bill, I'm going to give it back
to him, even if I need one hundred dollars, because
I just really believe in that. So you know, every morning,
you know, my first fruits are to God. So I
(41:02):
wake up and I pray, and I sit there with
a cup of coffee in silence so that I can,
you know, level set my mind, and then you know,
and then I and then I get into my day.
I pray throughout my day all the time, and then
I close every day with this. You know this, This
reminded me of something I want to bring back back
to the one on one meeting. Every meeting I have,
(41:23):
I don't care if I'm talking to a one on
one or I'm talking to a thousand people in a room.
I always start with getting to know people, what's going
on in their life, what's happening with them. They are
humans on the other side, and I want to get
to know them, right, and so I'll tell them stories
about myself. I remember I was running this orc and
(41:44):
and somebody goes, you know, Jim, every time you tell
a personal story, it just reminds me that you're not
only a human, but you're in it with us, right,
And it's and it's showing that humanity that is so powerful.
So sorry a coach. I know I took us off,
but I wanted to bring up that point to that
new manager, that sit down and talk to your people
first as people before you get into the numbers.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
That's that's really powerful. And you talked about faith.
Speaker 5 (42:09):
I think that's really important, and I know it's really
important to you.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
It's important to the two of us as well.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
What role has your faith played throughout your life and
how will it continue to shape your decisions moving forward?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Oh Man, John, I had a really challenging childhood. I
could write a book on that one. God has been
with me the whole way through my entire life. I
have known I've literally felt the hand of God in
my heart twice through some really challenging times. So my
faith is it's absolute. No one can ever tell me
that there isn't day God. Right. We can argue all
(42:45):
day long whether not just supposed to stand or kneel
or sit at any one particular time, right. But but
you know, so, I'm developing a presentation that I will
be giving a webinar on a monthly basis called Faith
in the Workplace. It's part of my c for Christ
endeavor because I really believe that we can bring faith
(43:05):
into the workplace, not religion different. I'm just talking faith, right,
I'm talking a love of each other. And so you know,
an interesting thing is there's this thing called the Catholic
Social Teachings, and if you got rid of the word Catholic,
it just said social teachings and presented them to most
human beings, everybody'd be like, oh yeah, I totally agree
with all that stuff. Right, So there is way more
(43:27):
that unites us than divides us. So my faith keeps
me focused on that one principle. I focus on what
unites us and brings us together as people, not what
divides us by societal norms.
Speaker 6 (43:43):
Jim, I have one final question, and I just want
to say I'm very grateful for your wonderful insights today.
I've really enjoyed this, and so I'm going to go
back because our goal is to help young and emerging leaders,
and you've shared a lot of great information. But I'm
going to make this really specific because you were a
college president and professor. So what life slash career advice
(44:10):
would you give that person that's getting out you know,
maybe just graduate in college or maybe just didn't even
go to college, but when in after high school? What
advice would you give them to get off to a
good start.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Number one, go buy the book First Break All the
Rules by the Gallup Organization. Very powerful book. It's an
old book. I have their twelve questions in my book.
It's what Gallup, what the Gallup Organization uses for their
state of the workforce and their engagement surveys. These questions
are the foundation of it. Highly recommend you buy this book.
When I back in the days of leading teams, every
(44:47):
time I promoted somebody, I gave them this book and
I signed it and I said, you know rock coment
about so, so you know the key there is is
that go get that book. Number two, recognize your job
is to develop your people. You and your employee share
symbiotic relationship. Your success is their success. Their success is
your success, right, and so your job is to help
them be successful so that you can be successful. Right.
(45:10):
It costs more to replace an employee than to develop one.
So develop your people because A is cheaper financially on
your organization's bottom line, and B it's a lot better
for your productivity. Because the second you lose an asset,
you lose productivity, and you can't expect your other people
to just pick it up right. So that human on
the other side of you is an asset and your
(45:30):
job is to develop them and first break all the rules.
Is a great book to help you understand how to.
Speaker 5 (45:35):
Do that, Doctor James, Shit, would I know, we want
to focus on your book and put that out there.
Leadership is Not Enough. We'll have the link down in
the show notes. How else can we get in touch
with you? Learn about c Suite for Christ and everything
else that you have going on?
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Absolutely, thank you, John. So, yeah, you can go to
Leadership is Not Enough dot com. That'll take you to
the book. You can find me at multiple ways, So
doctor jas Chitwood dot com. My consulting firm is called
Performance Performance Culture dot expert. That's the r L. It's
also the name Performance Culture dot expert. And then now
(46:10):
I am on LinkedIn, doctor James Chitwood, and then c
Suite for Christ is c sweet see dash Suite for
Christ dot com. And then of course we are also
on LinkedIn and the chicag because this Chicago chapter, the
announcement just went out last week. This is all brand new.
We are in development of our web page and all
(46:33):
the support material to get me rock. And so we're
gonna have a big meeting up in in Milwaukee. Anybody's
capable of going up there from Chicago, please come join us.
We're gonna have a luncheon. I'll be giving my keynote
on faith in the workplace and I look forward to,
you know, sharing fellowship with you all. That's our purpose,
our purpose. We're not a networking group, We're a fellowship group.
We're here to pray and lift each other up. We're
(46:54):
we like to say, we're a spiritual gas station ready
to fill everybody up. So power to you, wish you
all the best, the luck in life.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Doctor James Chitwoode and c Suite for Christ.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
We have that all down in the show notes, so
just scroll down and click on any of those links.
Speaker 4 (47:07):
To get in touch.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
And then Leadership is not enough as the book you
definitely got to check out.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
Thanks so much, Doctor Chipwood for your time today.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Thank you, John, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Thank you for joining us this week at the Limitless
Leadership Lounge. To listen to this episode again and to
find previous episodes, check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and spreakare You can also get in on the conversation.
Find us on Facebook and Instagram, then tell three of
your friends to join it as well. Coach Brnuma and John.
We'll be back again next week for another try generational
(47:37):
leadership discussion. We'll talk to you then on the Limitless
Leadership Lounge
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