July 31, 2025 • 29 mins
In this high-impact episode of That Will Nevr Work, Maurice Chism sits down with leadership expert and culture strategist James Robbins to unpack the blueprint for creating a peak performance culture—one where people are not just motivated but driven, fulfilled, and results-oriented.
James shares the practical habits, leadership mindsets, and cultural cues that transform teams from average to extraordinary. Whether you’re leading a team of five or fifty, this conversation breaks down how to align values, elevate performance, and build an environment where people consistently bring their best.
If you're a business owner, founder, or organizational leader trying to energize your team and maximize results, this episode is a must.
🎧 Press play and learn how to build a culture where excellence isn’t optional—it’s expected.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesrobbins97/
https://www.jamesrobbins.com/
James shares the practical habits, leadership mindsets, and cultural cues that transform teams from average to extraordinary. Whether you’re leading a team of five or fifty, this conversation breaks down how to align values, elevate performance, and build an environment where people consistently bring their best.
If you're a business owner, founder, or organizational leader trying to energize your team and maximize results, this episode is a must.
🎧 Press play and learn how to build a culture where excellence isn’t optional—it’s expected.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesrobbins97/
https://www.jamesrobbins.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I thank you very much for tuning in to that
Will Never Work podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
So do you need more rules or do you need
more purpose? Today?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I talked to James Robbins and he's going to help
me unpack how to build a culture that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Just perform, but performs at his peak.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And we're going to share a story of his that
he's because I think my research is y'all well know,
and we're going to talk about this peak that you'll
see what we talk about right after this.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Educate, empower, enable impact. Thank you for tuning in to
That Will Never Work, an award winning podcast where we
share inspiring information and personal experiences related to business and
the entrepreneurial journey from those who are leaders in their
respective field. Now here's your host, author and business coach.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I thank y'all very much for tuning in. And you
know you keep hearing the word peak right and building
peak performance. And this gentleman here, you know, I listened
to a presentation he had done some years ago. He
talked about how he climbed this mountain right and he
was holding on to this tent. He was in this
(01:23):
tent and hold on to this rock. And I'm bringing
this idea up because a lot of times, you know,
we're holding on to things right because we're scared of
certain situations. It doesn't allow us to grow and to
have faith and to you know, trusting our true foundation,
you know. And so James can please explain that idea
(01:47):
of holding on to that rock.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Well, the story you're referring to, we were.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
On the side of this mountains called Mount Sahama. It's
the highest mountain in Bolivia. I had just signed up
for this sex edition, So please don't think I'm one
of these like professional climbers.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I just like, you know, where do I sign up?
Speaker 5 (02:05):
So anyways, I found myself at about eighteen thousand feet
in this tent at high camp the night before we
were supposed to go to the summit.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
And this mountain is just legendary.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
For its high winds, and this wind was just pounding
the tent and I was just freaked out, Like.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
My anxiety was like at the peak, and I kept
thinking like we're going to blow off this mountain.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
And I do remember like reaching underneath my sleeping bag.
I'm just groping the floor of the tent until I
found this rock about the size of a baseball, And yeah,
I just held on to that because I knew it
wouldn't keep us from blowing off the mountain, but I
just wanted to know, like where we moving and to
try to get some comfort there.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
But to your point about you know, holding onto things, Yeah, I.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Think it's probably the biggest thing that holds us back
from reaching our potential is holding on to something that
makes us feel safe in the moment. It could be
a relationship, could be a job, could be an identity,
something we're used to, and it's so it's so it's
so difficult to let that go.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And because of that place of comfort, are we really
able to unlock the real potential of our employees, of
our customer base? Are we really able to unlock that
if we're in that comfortable space.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Well, no.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
And when it comes to in the workplace, in driving
peak performance, right, in terms of creating that culture, it's.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
More so about the environment, the weather.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
Think, if we're going to stick with the mountain metaphor
for a moment, you got to think of the culture
like the weather, right, what's the weather on the mountain
and what are the ideal conditions that we can create
Because the ideal conditions in a workplace.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
What they will do is they.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Will stimulate intrinsic motivation or ownership. That's really we're talking
about high performance. That's what we're after. We want people
to own a piece of the company. They don't have
to actually, you know, physically own it, but we want.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Them to own their role, own their job.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
And not just be you know, oh, I got to
do a bunch of tasks every day and you know eventually,
hey this is no fun. Let me find a new
place to work. So it's really about creating the environment
that brings out the best in people.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And so how do we do that, especially if we
have not always seen it ourselves. We didn't have always
that motivator behind us, that that teacher in front of
us to say, hey, you know, you can get to
another level. So how do we do that insider ourselves
if we never had that experience.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
There's three there's three things if you can focus on.
So for anyone who's listening to this, who's a leader,
you think of it in this way, Well, remember, first
of all, that motivation exists on a spectrum. Right on,
I keep talking about intrinsic motivations. That's like on the
far right side of the spectrum, where people they just
do it because they.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Love to do it.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Well. On the far left side of that spectrum would
be the external motivation.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
This is like the bears chasing you in the woods.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
The boss is gonna yell at you. If you don't
get this done, you might get fired. You're gonna get
written up, sent to HR like all these threats that
happen in the workplace. Are they motivating, Well, they are,
but it's a there's a high price to that kind
of motivation. So what we want is we want people
to tap into something within and one of the best
(05:31):
ways to do that from all the research over the
decades is people's need for progress.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
So think of it in this way.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
All of us have a need to make progress. Like
you know, Maurice, I don't know if you've ever worked
a job where it was just a job.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
There's no progress. You just had to come in and
put in your time. And that's when you're clock watching.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
You're like, I can't wait to get out of here,
and you know, you start closing up the shop thirty
minutes early because you just want to get out because
there's no progress for that employee and so what we
need is every employee needs a mountain to climb, whatever
it might be, whether that's a growth goal, a KPI
and OK are something that they feel like I can
(06:12):
give myself to and I'm further ahead than I was yesterday.
That makes us feel good. So that's number one. They've
got to be able to make progress. The second part
of this has to do with the culture of the team.
We would talk about psychological safety. And psychological safety is
that idea that I can come to the workplace and
(06:35):
I'm not in danger at least, you know, psychologically, my
ego is not going to be shattered here because this
is a safe place. It's safe to be me, safe
to learn, safe to contribute, and even safe to challenge.
I can push back if it's for the good of
the company and that culture. What that culture does is
(06:59):
when people start to feel safe, then they bring more
of themselves to the company, and that's how they bring
more ownership.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Right.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
So those two things, just even together will help create
a high performance culture.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
So when we take a look at your what we
start off with with climbing a mountain, and I was
really really impressed.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I'm like, yo, I want to climb a mountain one day.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
But my but my fear of heights sometimes, you know
that that kind of that's my ceiling a little bit sometimes.
But the reality is is that there's a point that
you put in there, which is something that's deeper inside
of me, right, you know, a one to be able
to push myself to another level? Is that something that
I really want to do or is that something that's
(07:43):
just is just a fantasy. But but what is it
that I get out of that?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So what did you get out of, you know, climbing
that mountain, being with your your instructor, you know, whoever
it was that was encouraging you about the tent, you know,
staying But what was that like to have that camaraderie
to climb his mountain? Because sometimes, like I stayed it earlier,
we don't always have that, you know. So, yes, it
(08:10):
has to start within, but we also have that external feeling.
But what encouraged you to say, you know what, I'm
gonna do this today, Maurice, you know, I'm gonna climb
this mountain to day?
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Well, what's interesting is I met the guy who ran
that guiding company. His name is Wally Berg and uh,
you know, famous American climber. And I would stop by
his house and he would tell me about the next
trip they were going on, you know, like, Hey, we're
gonna go to Russia to climb Mountain Elbris.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Why don't you come?
Speaker 5 (08:38):
And I would always be I love to Wally, I'd
love to, but I can't.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
You know, kids, and I got I can't afford that
and I can't take the time off work.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
And six months later I would stop by his houses
again and he would tell me about the adventure and
then he said, Hey, we're gonna go to kill him
and Jarro.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You know, why don't you come with us? One of
the seven Summits all love to Wally. And I just
kept saying the same things all the time, I'll love to,
I'd love to.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
And it was one day I was driving back from
his place and I thought, this is the story that
you're going to keep saying, like there's never going to
be a perfect time, but you want to do this,
And so I just called him back. I said, Okay,
what's the next trip? He's like, oh, to Bolivia. And
I'm like, okay, sign me up. Where you know where
do I give my credit card? And I couldn't have
real I couldn't even really afford it at that moment,
(09:21):
but I just I needed to do something.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So that's how that began. Okay, it might have.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Been more out of just wanting to wanting to do
something to feel more alive, and often that's.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Where it starts for a lot of us.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
It's just that something's not lining up for us, something's
missing here, and yet we're doing all the right things,
you know, maybe we went to college, or maybe we
got the job we thought we wanted to do, but
then something is is misaligned. And to me, that's when
the soul is speaking to you, saying, hey, there's something
bigger for you. And you know that mountain climb, it's
(10:02):
a it's a it's a messy story, definitely, but I
learned so much out of that and the doors that opened,
even that story, the doors that story open, and how
that's been able to impact so many people.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
But I would I never thought that when I was
in my car thinking I should call this guy back, right.
There's just.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
We get those we get those nudget from the soul
that say, hey, what you're doing is there's something bigger
for you.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
And that's where we've got to begin to stop and listen.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And it's interesting because a lot of us are on
this perpetual wheel, right, you know, we keep going in
the same circle ran as saying, will all the time
of saying, hey, you know what I wish I could do,
I'm going to do, but we, for whatever reason, we
talk ourselves out of it. And sometimes we do the
exact same thing with our teams, the people that sat
(10:57):
around us, you know, we put them on that same
been cycle. So how do we even break that even
for those individuals along with trying to find ourselves, especially
if we don't know ourselves, how do we ensure that
we get the best performance out of our team if again,
we're not in that space.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
A great reframe, if you're a boss or if you
are a business owner, especially if you're a business owner,
is to quit thinking about growing your company and scaling
and what numbers and even though those are important, reframe
it as take your staff, take your team on an
exciting adventure, an exciting journey where everyone's going to play
(11:37):
a part.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
What is it that we want to do and make
that you know, it's.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Going to be filled with obstacles and challenges, but in
the context of the adventure.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Even right now, there's a lot of businesses that are.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Feeling the strain with the uncertainty and the economy and
tariffs and all of this stuff. Okay, this is just
like a scene in a movie. And so how are
you going to lead your people through that? But get
them excited about the grand adventure of where we're going,
and then help them understand what's their key role in
that so they can feel ownership, so then they can
(12:15):
also make progress and feel like they're part of something bigger.
Got to remember, most people will not start businesses, but
they still have that desire to be part of something bigger,
and so they rely on the entrepreneurs like us, they
rely on the business leaders and the business owners to
create that for them.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
M and I think there's a level of trust that
we may or may not have those team putting exercises,
you know. And so I recall being in one session
and work where they're old faithful, put your hands across
(12:55):
your chest and fall back, trusting that somebody is going
to catch you right, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
But interesting enough, no one wanted to do that. We
didn't trust each other enough.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
And so how do we break that idea that hey,
I don't trust you even though I sit next to
literally every day.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
One of the ways that you can help create more
trust on a team is to find affinity points between members.
So what I mean is, you know, Maurice, you and
I don't know each other at all, right, and we
didn't have a lot of warm up time even before
we jumped into this interview.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So there's our affinity points.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Are very small at this point, other than I know
that you speak and I do speaking, and we have
similar industries. You have a podcast, I have a podcast,
So we have some common points, so that if we
were hanging out instantly, we have some stuff to talk about.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Right. So in the workplace, that's why you.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Want to do things like from time to time you'll
ask people add things like two truths and a lie,
or what's one fun fact about you that know here
knows and you know? And then I've seen you know,
I've taught companies to do this, and you see people
come out and say, oh, well I was you know,
I'm into couponting, but no one knows. And then someone
else on the team is like, I've been wanting to
(14:11):
do that for so long, but I just never known
how to start. And so even though that was just
this tiny moment, now somewhere later at the water cooler,
a conversation happens.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
But it's about couponing.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
It's not about the company, but it's but in a sense,
it's not about COUPONNI, It's it's where we're taking trust deeper.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Because to know me is to trust me, even.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
If in a sense you don't trust me right like,
as you know me, then you know how I'm going
to be. But the more similarity we find with someone
that we can see ourselves in them, that's where we
really begin to trust people.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Well, James, sometimes I'm an introvert, right, Maybe I don't
want people to get that close to me, you know,
because I'm fearful that people are going to use it
against me because in this society of unfortunately is me first, right,
and not worried about the person next to me bringing
them along with me through this journey that we can
(15:11):
really help each other through this process. So how do
I recreate that me first mentality?
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Are you just what I can understand? The question?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Are you talking about from a business leader with their
team perspective?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Or if it's just me building trust with my team.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It could be either way because some you know, because
it's kind of almost again, the key is me right
either way, you know, So, so how or which way
you would like to take it?
Speaker 5 (15:40):
Well, if you're a leader, one of the best things
you can do is take a genuine interest in those
that you lead. And when I say genuine interest, to
know something about them, like their spouse's name, how many
kids they have, what's a major hobby and passion they
have outside of work? Why would I want to know
these things? So that from time to time I can
just be in interested. Because when we care about someone,
(16:03):
that's a source of trust. Right when someone feels like
my boss cares about me, that means he or she
is less likely to stab me in the back, steal credit,
pull the rug out from under me.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
You know, hopefully they don't. And so one of the
challenges for us as leaders is we're so busy. We
got to get things done.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
And so we can roll up on Monday morning, open
up our Slack channel and just be like, hey, where's
the Hey, I didn't see the Instagram posts. Hey, we
can start asking those business questions, but hold on a second,
just take a moment and be like, Hey, everybody, what'd
you do on the weekend? What's the best thing you
did on the weekend? And people are going to share
all fantastic. Hey have you gotten back into biking yet?
(16:42):
I know you want to do that, right. So it's
these little moments that don't take time, but they add
dimension and depth to the relationship.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
And the more people can feel.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Like, oh, I'm more than a number here, then they'll
trust a bit more and then they bring more of
themselves to the workplace.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So there's a key word that I believe you started
off with by saying leader, right, because sometimes we don't
really know what that word really means, to be honest,
and sometimes breaking down those barriers as a leader, you know,
that's that's our responsibility to bring comfortability, trust, reliability in
(17:22):
that situation. And so how would you define the world leader?
For those of us that may not.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
Know, that's a million dollar question, maries, how did someone
define leadership?
Speaker 4 (17:34):
I can tell you how.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
I don't define it. It's definitely not just this position
right at the end of the day. Leadership is when
you are thinking outside of yourself to make something happen.
Typically for the greater good, or at least typically to
see something to reach some kind of a goal. But
when I say thinking outside of ourselves is if I'm
(17:56):
only thinking about me, I can go build a solo
company and I can go and do that. But when
I need help, all right, now this person has come in,
I have to now think how can I help them
be the best version of them? Because that's going to
help them. Man, it's gonna help me. And so it's
not an either or, it's a both and And I.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Think that's what leaders do. Leaders, Really great leaders, I
should say this. Great leaders elevate people. They elevate people's performance.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
Great leaders make people believe in themselves, more accomplished things
they didn't think they can do.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
And it's not always easy, right, Leadership isn't easy. But
at the same time, it doesn't have to be complicated.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
It doesn't have to be Sometimes we over complicate because
we're overanalyzing, right, you know, we're over complicating because again
we're looking at what the perception is that one supervisor.
And I'll speak about my own experience when I had
a supervisor who stayed at hey, Maurice, saying whatder for you?
To be where I am, you need to duplicate exactly
(19:04):
what I do, which was not always the most pleasant,
and understanding that everybody hates you. You get what I mean,
you know, and so sometimes that's why I had stated earlier,
sometimes our examples are not always the best examples, especially
if we don't have it. But they got up there
(19:26):
because of the perception was they did their business, They
did their job, not realizing they were demoralizing everybody underneath
of them.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Yeah, you make two great points there.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
The first one relates with all of us come to
leadership pretty much through the same door. Right. We were
good at what we were doing, and we were trustworthy,
and there was a need and someone said hey, or
I need you to be a manager, and all said, whoa.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
There we were.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
But at that point we then looked to oh, I
need to know how to lead people. And our only
rollo decks is the bosses or coaches we've had in
our past.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Now, maybe you were lucky and you had great bosses,
or maybe.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
You weren't lucky, but that's all you have right to
go by, And so early on that's why leaders have
to really begin to be aggressive at how do I
grow my leadership skills, because that's so important.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
And then the other thing.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
You can be a leader and be burn out your staff.
You can do all these things and maybe get the
job done. But are you an efficient leader.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
You're more of an expensive leader, like you led this company.
But the cost was all these people quit. Let's talk
about how much that costs. And so often we don't
factor that into the formula.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Right if we think, Okay, here's this guy, and let's
say he was a leader, and then you know, he
made these mistakes and the company had to pay this fine,
and he's cost the company this money, you know.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
A million dollars.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Well, meanwhile, he's actually cost them three million dollars because
of all these people that quit and the bad work
they brought forward, which then lost them contracts, all because
of the culture that he created. Yeah, but we don't
evaluate leaders based on that bottom line because that one's
hard to measure.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Mmmm.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I mean, and I remember, just as as you're speaking,
I could see the conversation that he and I had,
and as you stated that turnover because our department was
it was a lot of turnover every year, and I
was in customer service. I'm talking about very early on,
and you know, my my corporate America life, I guess.
(21:41):
And we were in customer service and we had people
there that were genuinely there. They really wanted to help people.
So but the hard the work didn't have to be
that hard. He didn't have to over coach us, he
didn't have.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
To over direct us. We were running pretty well.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
But sometimes you know, hey, we want to get to
these stats and things like that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
But if we just would have.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Pulled back some, we could have overachieved. To be honest,
we were a team of thirteen. We could have overachieved.
But because he was so hard on us, we kept
underachieved and we kept we kept missing our stats. And
so sometimes we don't see the value in that we're
pushing so hard at a certain number that we don't
know how to relax a little bit and breathe.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Yeah, if people don't have a chance to, as you said,
like relax and breathe, even have some fun, then productivity
actually gets stifled.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Because it was interesting. I was.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
I interviewed a guy who ran a funeral home and
I said to him, same as Michael Pearson, and my
first question was is it any fun to work here?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
And his answer was fun here is critical, he said,
very seriously.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
But he said, we have so much stress and the
heaviness of what we do. He said, when obviously when
the clients are not there, he said, if we're not
able to have some fun together, well off that steam.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
He said, man, we can't do our job.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
And it comes back to your point, right, because we're
not robots, right, and maybe if we were, then the
leading would be a lot easier. But the complexity we
bring is because also goes to the beauty that we bring, right,
And so you can't view your staff just as economic units,
or you will. I mean you can, but you're only
going to get like seventy percent out of them.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Wouldn't you rather have ninety?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
And that's where we were. We you know, we had our.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Line was ninety two, right, you know, we had to
get ninety two percent on our call correctness time, all
that type of stuff, But we kept hovering around seventy
nine or eighty because it was just too much.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It was just too much pressure on us.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
But when those times when he did let a little bit, oh,
we was at ninety three to ninety five, you know,
And so sometimes that's what I mean by in my
own experience, if we were able to breathe and not
being hovered over, and also knew that, hey, every call
was being monitored. We knew the calls were being monitored,
that's just part of the job. But not constantly being
(24:20):
reminded of that. That put a lot of pressure on
us in that situation.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
And that comes back to the thing I said at
the beginning about psychological safety, when I said it's safe
to fail, safe to learn, safe to contribute. Right, when
people understand that, yeah, okay, I'm being recorded, but the
reason I'm being recorded is to help me be better, right,
and that we can look at that and be like,
here's what you did, great, and you know, here, how
do you think you can improve when it's not so evaluative,
(24:48):
Because soon as we put that judgment in right, and
I've heard you talk about that before about judgment, how.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
We don't like judgment. It's not good for us. We
put the walls up. And you know, if let's say
I could and say go.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Back in time to your boss of the team of thirteen,
and if I said to your boss, Hey, how would
you feel if I gave you one more employee and
you didn't have to pay for them, and they're already trained.
You know, would you want them? Well, the ends would
be of course, you know, where's this person? Well, I
just need to get thirteen people to be eight percent
(25:22):
more engaged, and there's an extra employee. Right, So you
start thinking in that perspective, it's like, oh, my goodness,
eight percent is not much. Right to get someone to
lean in that little bit more to your point, sometimes
that means is backing off. But really what we're backing off, right,
the pressure. We're backing off the psychological unsafety. Because now
(25:45):
people are like, Okay, now I can Now I can
bring my full attention to this moment, and I'm not
scared because if you're working scared, you're just working with
part of your brain.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
And there's one thing that the manager would love to hear.
It ain't cost them a salary or a fringe benefits
or anything else day, you know, But James, I appreciate
you coming on. You know, please let everyone know where
they can find your information so they can understand how
they bring their business their employees to a peak performance level.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Sure, Maurice, Well you can easily find me online. James
Robbins dot com. That's two b's James Robins dot Calm
and I'm on LinkedIn posting there all the time.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Say hi, let me know that you heard me here
on Maurice's show.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Sure, no problem. And James, again, I have a question
for you. I ask everybody, and because of this team
building I might have another question, but we're.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Gonna start with this first one. This first one.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Would you rather, now think outside the box? Would you
rather choose three doors or a fork in the road?
Speaker 5 (26:53):
Would I rather choose three doors or a fork in
the road or three doors?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Because the fork in the roads just a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Now if you use your imagination, what's going on with
the three doors?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Could you see through them? Are they already open? You know?
Or you're just like, hey, there's three doors. I'm just
gonna pick them.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
They're closed. But I got I got more options.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Really now, I told you you know again when I'm
talking about this team building thing, about having fun, right,
So let me ask you this question, James, if you
could sing a duet with anyone in the world, dead
or alive, who would it be?
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Bono from you two? Really?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah? That was hands Dade quick for sure. That's nice.
That's nice.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Now, would you actually be singing with him or would
he be singing and you're just kind of play in
the background.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
Yeah, maybe I'm just on stage watching it, taking selfies
or something.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
But I should probably have a better answer than Bono.
That's just my favorite band.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
But no, that's fine, Yeah, no, that's fine. No, but
I appreciate it because again you stated about having fun
right and bonding with the team. You know, is those
type of questions that understand hey, how you operate, how
you think, you know, how you maneuver through this life.
A lot of times we don't do that, you know,
and those are great icebreakers.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Absolutely, I love that. I'm going to steal those those questions. Nice.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Nice, So but I thank you James for coming on
to the show.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Today, Maurice, Thanks for having me show, No.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Problem, of course, everyone his information will be in the
show notes. So if you're walking, running, jogging, whatever it is,
climbing the mountain, swimming underneath the sea, you know you'll
be able to get to it later on. Thank y'all
very much for tuning in today, and I'll talk to
you just a little bit later.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Thanks for listening. Follow Maurice Chisholm on social media to
stay connected and check back weekly for new episodes until
next time. That will never work, or will it
I thank you very much for tuning in to that
Will Never Work podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
So do you need more rules or do you need
more purpose? Today?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I talked to James Robbins and he's going to help
me unpack how to build a culture that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Just perform, but performs at his peak.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And we're going to share a story of his that
he's because I think my research is y'all well know,
and we're going to talk about this peak that you'll
see what we talk about right after this.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Educate, empower, enable impact. Thank you for tuning in to
That Will Never Work, an award winning podcast where we
share inspiring information and personal experiences related to business and
the entrepreneurial journey from those who are leaders in their
respective field. Now here's your host, author and business coach.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I thank y'all very much for tuning in. And you
know you keep hearing the word peak right and building
peak performance. And this gentleman here, you know, I listened
to a presentation he had done some years ago. He
talked about how he climbed this mountain right and he
was holding on to this tent. He was in this
(01:23):
tent and hold on to this rock. And I'm bringing
this idea up because a lot of times, you know,
we're holding on to things right because we're scared of
certain situations. It doesn't allow us to grow and to
have faith and to you know, trusting our true foundation,
you know. And so James can please explain that idea
(01:47):
of holding on to that rock.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Well, the story you're referring to, we were.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
On the side of this mountains called Mount Sahama. It's
the highest mountain in Bolivia. I had just signed up
for this sex edition, So please don't think I'm one
of these like professional climbers.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I just like, you know, where do I sign up?
Speaker 5 (02:05):
So anyways, I found myself at about eighteen thousand feet
in this tent at high camp the night before we
were supposed to go to the summit.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
And this mountain is just legendary.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
For its high winds, and this wind was just pounding
the tent and I was just freaked out, Like.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
My anxiety was like at the peak, and I kept
thinking like we're going to blow off this mountain.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
And I do remember like reaching underneath my sleeping bag.
I'm just groping the floor of the tent until I
found this rock about the size of a baseball, And yeah,
I just held on to that because I knew it
wouldn't keep us from blowing off the mountain, but I
just wanted to know, like where we moving and to
try to get some comfort there.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
But to your point about you know, holding onto things, Yeah, I.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Think it's probably the biggest thing that holds us back
from reaching our potential is holding on to something that
makes us feel safe in the moment. It could be
a relationship, could be a job, could be an identity,
something we're used to, and it's so it's so it's
so difficult to let that go.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And because of that place of comfort, are we really
able to unlock the real potential of our employees, of
our customer base? Are we really able to unlock that
if we're in that comfortable space.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Well, no.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
And when it comes to in the workplace, in driving
peak performance, right, in terms of creating that culture, it's.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
More so about the environment, the weather.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
Think, if we're going to stick with the mountain metaphor
for a moment, you got to think of the culture
like the weather, right, what's the weather on the mountain
and what are the ideal conditions that we can create
Because the ideal conditions in a workplace.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
What they will do is they.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Will stimulate intrinsic motivation or ownership. That's really we're talking
about high performance. That's what we're after. We want people
to own a piece of the company. They don't have
to actually, you know, physically own it, but we want.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Them to own their role, own their job.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
And not just be you know, oh, I got to
do a bunch of tasks every day and you know eventually,
hey this is no fun. Let me find a new
place to work. So it's really about creating the environment
that brings out the best in people.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And so how do we do that, especially if we
have not always seen it ourselves. We didn't have always
that motivator behind us, that that teacher in front of
us to say, hey, you know, you can get to
another level. So how do we do that insider ourselves
if we never had that experience.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
There's three there's three things if you can focus on.
So for anyone who's listening to this, who's a leader,
you think of it in this way, Well, remember, first
of all, that motivation exists on a spectrum. Right on,
I keep talking about intrinsic motivations. That's like on the
far right side of the spectrum, where people they just
do it because they.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Love to do it.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
Well. On the far left side of that spectrum would
be the external motivation.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
This is like the bears chasing you in the woods.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
The boss is gonna yell at you. If you don't
get this done, you might get fired. You're gonna get
written up, sent to HR like all these threats that
happen in the workplace. Are they motivating, Well, they are,
but it's a there's a high price to that kind
of motivation. So what we want is we want people
to tap into something within and one of the best
(05:31):
ways to do that from all the research over the
decades is people's need for progress.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
So think of it in this way.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
All of us have a need to make progress. Like
you know, Maurice, I don't know if you've ever worked
a job where it was just a job.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
There's no progress. You just had to come in and
put in your time. And that's when you're clock watching.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
You're like, I can't wait to get out of here,
and you know, you start closing up the shop thirty
minutes early because you just want to get out because
there's no progress for that employee and so what we
need is every employee needs a mountain to climb, whatever
it might be, whether that's a growth goal, a KPI
and OK are something that they feel like I can
(06:12):
give myself to and I'm further ahead than I was yesterday.
That makes us feel good. So that's number one. They've
got to be able to make progress. The second part
of this has to do with the culture of the team.
We would talk about psychological safety. And psychological safety is
that idea that I can come to the workplace and
(06:35):
I'm not in danger at least, you know, psychologically, my
ego is not going to be shattered here because this
is a safe place. It's safe to be me, safe
to learn, safe to contribute, and even safe to challenge.
I can push back if it's for the good of
the company and that culture. What that culture does is
(06:59):
when people start to feel safe, then they bring more
of themselves to the company, and that's how they bring
more ownership.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Right.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
So those two things, just even together will help create
a high performance culture.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
So when we take a look at your what we
start off with with climbing a mountain, and I was
really really impressed.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I'm like, yo, I want to climb a mountain one day.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
But my but my fear of heights sometimes, you know
that that kind of that's my ceiling a little bit sometimes.
But the reality is is that there's a point that
you put in there, which is something that's deeper inside
of me, right, you know, a one to be able
to push myself to another level? Is that something that
I really want to do or is that something that's
(07:43):
just is just a fantasy. But but what is it
that I get out of that?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So what did you get out of, you know, climbing
that mountain, being with your your instructor, you know, whoever
it was that was encouraging you about the tent, you know,
staying But what was that like to have that camaraderie
to climb his mountain? Because sometimes, like I stayed it earlier,
we don't always have that, you know. So, yes, it
(08:10):
has to start within, but we also have that external feeling.
But what encouraged you to say, you know what, I'm
gonna do this today, Maurice, you know, I'm gonna climb
this mountain to day?
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Well, what's interesting is I met the guy who ran
that guiding company. His name is Wally Berg and uh,
you know, famous American climber. And I would stop by
his house and he would tell me about the next
trip they were going on, you know, like, Hey, we're
gonna go to Russia to climb Mountain Elbris.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Why don't you come?
Speaker 5 (08:38):
And I would always be I love to Wally, I'd
love to, but I can't.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
You know, kids, and I got I can't afford that
and I can't take the time off work.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
And six months later I would stop by his houses
again and he would tell me about the adventure and
then he said, Hey, we're gonna go to kill him
and Jarro.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You know, why don't you come with us? One of
the seven Summits all love to Wally. And I just
kept saying the same things all the time, I'll love to,
I'd love to.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
And it was one day I was driving back from
his place and I thought, this is the story that
you're going to keep saying, like there's never going to
be a perfect time, but you want to do this,
And so I just called him back. I said, Okay,
what's the next trip? He's like, oh, to Bolivia. And
I'm like, okay, sign me up. Where you know where
do I give my credit card? And I couldn't have
real I couldn't even really afford it at that moment,
(09:21):
but I just I needed to do something.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So that's how that began. Okay, it might have.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Been more out of just wanting to wanting to do
something to feel more alive, and often that's.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Where it starts for a lot of us.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
It's just that something's not lining up for us, something's
missing here, and yet we're doing all the right things,
you know, maybe we went to college, or maybe we
got the job we thought we wanted to do, but
then something is is misaligned. And to me, that's when
the soul is speaking to you, saying, hey, there's something
bigger for you. And you know that mountain climb, it's
(10:02):
a it's a it's a messy story, definitely, but I
learned so much out of that and the doors that opened,
even that story, the doors that story open, and how
that's been able to impact so many people.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
But I would I never thought that when I was
in my car thinking I should call this guy back, right.
There's just.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
We get those we get those nudget from the soul
that say, hey, what you're doing is there's something bigger
for you.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
And that's where we've got to begin to stop and listen.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And it's interesting because a lot of us are on
this perpetual wheel, right, you know, we keep going in
the same circle ran as saying, will all the time
of saying, hey, you know what I wish I could do,
I'm going to do, but we, for whatever reason, we
talk ourselves out of it. And sometimes we do the
exact same thing with our teams, the people that sat
(10:57):
around us, you know, we put them on that same
been cycle. So how do we even break that even
for those individuals along with trying to find ourselves, especially
if we don't know ourselves, how do we ensure that
we get the best performance out of our team if again,
we're not in that space.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
A great reframe, if you're a boss or if you
are a business owner, especially if you're a business owner,
is to quit thinking about growing your company and scaling
and what numbers and even though those are important, reframe
it as take your staff, take your team on an
exciting adventure, an exciting journey where everyone's going to play
(11:37):
a part.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
What is it that we want to do and make
that you know, it's.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Going to be filled with obstacles and challenges, but in
the context of the adventure.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Even right now, there's a lot of businesses that are.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Feeling the strain with the uncertainty and the economy and
tariffs and all of this stuff. Okay, this is just
like a scene in a movie. And so how are
you going to lead your people through that? But get
them excited about the grand adventure of where we're going,
and then help them understand what's their key role in
that so they can feel ownership, so then they can
(12:15):
also make progress and feel like they're part of something bigger.
Got to remember, most people will not start businesses, but
they still have that desire to be part of something bigger,
and so they rely on the entrepreneurs like us, they
rely on the business leaders and the business owners to
create that for them.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
M and I think there's a level of trust that
we may or may not have those team putting exercises,
you know. And so I recall being in one session
and work where they're old faithful, put your hands across
(12:55):
your chest and fall back, trusting that somebody is going
to catch you right, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
But interesting enough, no one wanted to do that. We
didn't trust each other enough.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
And so how do we break that idea that hey,
I don't trust you even though I sit next to
literally every day.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
One of the ways that you can help create more
trust on a team is to find affinity points between members.
So what I mean is, you know, Maurice, you and
I don't know each other at all, right, and we
didn't have a lot of warm up time even before
we jumped into this interview.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So there's our affinity points.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Are very small at this point, other than I know
that you speak and I do speaking, and we have
similar industries. You have a podcast, I have a podcast,
So we have some common points, so that if we
were hanging out instantly, we have some stuff to talk about.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Right. So in the workplace, that's why you.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Want to do things like from time to time you'll
ask people add things like two truths and a lie,
or what's one fun fact about you that know here
knows and you know? And then I've seen you know,
I've taught companies to do this, and you see people
come out and say, oh, well I was you know,
I'm into couponting, but no one knows. And then someone
else on the team is like, I've been wanting to
(14:11):
do that for so long, but I just never known
how to start. And so even though that was just
this tiny moment, now somewhere later at the water cooler,
a conversation happens.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
But it's about couponing.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
It's not about the company, but it's but in a sense,
it's not about COUPONNI, It's it's where we're taking trust deeper.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Because to know me is to trust me, even.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
If in a sense you don't trust me right like,
as you know me, then you know how I'm going
to be. But the more similarity we find with someone
that we can see ourselves in them, that's where we
really begin to trust people.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Well, James, sometimes I'm an introvert, right, Maybe I don't
want people to get that close to me, you know,
because I'm fearful that people are going to use it
against me because in this society of unfortunately is me first, right,
and not worried about the person next to me bringing
them along with me through this journey that we can
(15:11):
really help each other through this process. So how do
I recreate that me first mentality?
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Are you just what I can understand? The question?
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Are you talking about from a business leader with their
team perspective?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Or if it's just me building trust with my team.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It could be either way because some you know, because
it's kind of almost again, the key is me right
either way, you know, So, so how or which way
you would like to take it?
Speaker 5 (15:40):
Well, if you're a leader, one of the best things
you can do is take a genuine interest in those
that you lead. And when I say genuine interest, to
know something about them, like their spouse's name, how many
kids they have, what's a major hobby and passion they
have outside of work? Why would I want to know
these things? So that from time to time I can
just be in interested. Because when we care about someone,
(16:03):
that's a source of trust. Right when someone feels like
my boss cares about me, that means he or she
is less likely to stab me in the back, steal credit,
pull the rug out from under me.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
You know, hopefully they don't. And so one of the
challenges for us as leaders is we're so busy. We
got to get things done.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
And so we can roll up on Monday morning, open
up our Slack channel and just be like, hey, where's
the Hey, I didn't see the Instagram posts. Hey, we
can start asking those business questions, but hold on a second,
just take a moment and be like, Hey, everybody, what'd
you do on the weekend? What's the best thing you
did on the weekend? And people are going to share
all fantastic. Hey have you gotten back into biking yet?
(16:42):
I know you want to do that, right. So it's
these little moments that don't take time, but they add
dimension and depth to the relationship.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
And the more people can feel.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Like, oh, I'm more than a number here, then they'll
trust a bit more and then they bring more of
themselves to the workplace.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So there's a key word that I believe you started
off with by saying leader, right, because sometimes we don't
really know what that word really means, to be honest,
and sometimes breaking down those barriers as a leader, you know,
that's that's our responsibility to bring comfortability, trust, reliability in
(17:22):
that situation. And so how would you define the world leader?
For those of us that may not.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
Know, that's a million dollar question, maries, how did someone
define leadership?
Speaker 4 (17:34):
I can tell you how.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
I don't define it. It's definitely not just this position
right at the end of the day. Leadership is when
you are thinking outside of yourself to make something happen.
Typically for the greater good, or at least typically to
see something to reach some kind of a goal. But
when I say thinking outside of ourselves is if I'm
(17:56):
only thinking about me, I can go build a solo
company and I can go and do that. But when
I need help, all right, now this person has come in,
I have to now think how can I help them
be the best version of them? Because that's going to
help them. Man, it's gonna help me. And so it's
not an either or, it's a both and And I.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Think that's what leaders do. Leaders, Really great leaders, I
should say this. Great leaders elevate people. They elevate people's performance.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
Great leaders make people believe in themselves, more accomplished things
they didn't think they can do.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
And it's not always easy, right, Leadership isn't easy. But
at the same time, it doesn't have to be complicated.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
It doesn't have to be Sometimes we over complicate because
we're overanalyzing, right, you know, we're over complicating because again
we're looking at what the perception is that one supervisor.
And I'll speak about my own experience when I had
a supervisor who stayed at hey, Maurice, saying whatder for you?
To be where I am, you need to duplicate exactly
(19:04):
what I do, which was not always the most pleasant,
and understanding that everybody hates you. You get what I mean,
you know, and so sometimes that's why I had stated earlier,
sometimes our examples are not always the best examples, especially
if we don't have it. But they got up there
(19:26):
because of the perception was they did their business, They
did their job, not realizing they were demoralizing everybody underneath
of them.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Yeah, you make two great points there.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
The first one relates with all of us come to
leadership pretty much through the same door. Right. We were
good at what we were doing, and we were trustworthy,
and there was a need and someone said hey, or
I need you to be a manager, and all said, whoa.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
There we were.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
But at that point we then looked to oh, I
need to know how to lead people. And our only
rollo decks is the bosses or coaches we've had in
our past.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Now, maybe you were lucky and you had great bosses,
or maybe.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
You weren't lucky, but that's all you have right to
go by, And so early on that's why leaders have
to really begin to be aggressive at how do I
grow my leadership skills, because that's so important.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
And then the other thing.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
You can be a leader and be burn out your staff.
You can do all these things and maybe get the
job done. But are you an efficient leader.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
You're more of an expensive leader, like you led this company.
But the cost was all these people quit. Let's talk
about how much that costs. And so often we don't
factor that into the formula.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Right if we think, Okay, here's this guy, and let's
say he was a leader, and then you know, he
made these mistakes and the company had to pay this fine,
and he's cost the company this money, you know.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
A million dollars.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Well, meanwhile, he's actually cost them three million dollars because
of all these people that quit and the bad work
they brought forward, which then lost them contracts, all because
of the culture that he created. Yeah, but we don't
evaluate leaders based on that bottom line because that one's
hard to measure.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Mmmm.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I mean, and I remember, just as as you're speaking,
I could see the conversation that he and I had,
and as you stated that turnover because our department was
it was a lot of turnover every year, and I
was in customer service. I'm talking about very early on,
and you know, my my corporate America life, I guess.
(21:41):
And we were in customer service and we had people
there that were genuinely there. They really wanted to help people.
So but the hard the work didn't have to be
that hard. He didn't have to over coach us, he
didn't have.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
To over direct us. We were running pretty well.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
But sometimes you know, hey, we want to get to
these stats and things like that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
But if we just would have.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Pulled back some, we could have overachieved. To be honest,
we were a team of thirteen. We could have overachieved.
But because he was so hard on us, we kept
underachieved and we kept we kept missing our stats. And
so sometimes we don't see the value in that we're
pushing so hard at a certain number that we don't
know how to relax a little bit and breathe.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Yeah, if people don't have a chance to, as you said,
like relax and breathe, even have some fun, then productivity
actually gets stifled.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Because it was interesting. I was.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
I interviewed a guy who ran a funeral home and
I said to him, same as Michael Pearson, and my
first question was is it any fun to work here?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
And his answer was fun here is critical, he said,
very seriously.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
But he said, we have so much stress and the
heaviness of what we do. He said, when obviously when
the clients are not there, he said, if we're not
able to have some fun together, well off that steam.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
He said, man, we can't do our job.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
And it comes back to your point, right, because we're
not robots, right, and maybe if we were, then the
leading would be a lot easier. But the complexity we
bring is because also goes to the beauty that we bring, right,
And so you can't view your staff just as economic units,
or you will. I mean you can, but you're only
going to get like seventy percent out of them.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Wouldn't you rather have ninety?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
And that's where we were. We you know, we had our.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Line was ninety two, right, you know, we had to
get ninety two percent on our call correctness time, all
that type of stuff, But we kept hovering around seventy
nine or eighty because it was just too much.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It was just too much pressure on us.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
But when those times when he did let a little bit, oh,
we was at ninety three to ninety five, you know,
And so sometimes that's what I mean by in my
own experience, if we were able to breathe and not
being hovered over, and also knew that, hey, every call
was being monitored. We knew the calls were being monitored,
that's just part of the job. But not constantly being
(24:20):
reminded of that. That put a lot of pressure on
us in that situation.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
And that comes back to the thing I said at
the beginning about psychological safety, when I said it's safe
to fail, safe to learn, safe to contribute. Right, when
people understand that, yeah, okay, I'm being recorded, but the
reason I'm being recorded is to help me be better, right,
and that we can look at that and be like,
here's what you did, great, and you know, here, how
do you think you can improve when it's not so evaluative,
(24:48):
Because soon as we put that judgment in right, and
I've heard you talk about that before about judgment, how.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
We don't like judgment. It's not good for us. We
put the walls up. And you know, if let's say
I could and say go.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Back in time to your boss of the team of thirteen,
and if I said to your boss, Hey, how would
you feel if I gave you one more employee and
you didn't have to pay for them, and they're already trained.
You know, would you want them? Well, the ends would
be of course, you know, where's this person? Well, I
just need to get thirteen people to be eight percent
(25:22):
more engaged, and there's an extra employee. Right, So you
start thinking in that perspective, it's like, oh, my goodness,
eight percent is not much. Right to get someone to
lean in that little bit more to your point, sometimes
that means is backing off. But really what we're backing off, right,
the pressure. We're backing off the psychological unsafety. Because now
(25:45):
people are like, Okay, now I can Now I can
bring my full attention to this moment, and I'm not
scared because if you're working scared, you're just working with
part of your brain.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
And there's one thing that the manager would love to hear.
It ain't cost them a salary or a fringe benefits
or anything else day, you know, But James, I appreciate
you coming on. You know, please let everyone know where
they can find your information so they can understand how
they bring their business their employees to a peak performance level.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Sure, Maurice, Well you can easily find me online. James
Robbins dot com. That's two b's James Robins dot Calm
and I'm on LinkedIn posting there all the time.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Say hi, let me know that you heard me here
on Maurice's show.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Sure, no problem. And James, again, I have a question
for you. I ask everybody, and because of this team
building I might have another question, but we're.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Gonna start with this first one. This first one.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Would you rather, now think outside the box? Would you
rather choose three doors or a fork in the road?
Speaker 5 (26:53):
Would I rather choose three doors or a fork in
the road or three doors?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Because the fork in the roads just a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Now if you use your imagination, what's going on with
the three doors?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Could you see through them? Are they already open? You know?
Or you're just like, hey, there's three doors. I'm just
gonna pick them.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
They're closed. But I got I got more options.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Really now, I told you you know again when I'm
talking about this team building thing, about having fun, right,
So let me ask you this question, James, if you
could sing a duet with anyone in the world, dead
or alive, who would it be?
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Bono from you two? Really?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah? That was hands Dade quick for sure. That's nice.
That's nice.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Now, would you actually be singing with him or would
he be singing and you're just kind of play in
the background.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
Yeah, maybe I'm just on stage watching it, taking selfies
or something.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
But I should probably have a better answer than Bono.
That's just my favorite band.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
But no, that's fine, Yeah, no, that's fine. No, but
I appreciate it because again you stated about having fun
right and bonding with the team. You know, is those
type of questions that understand hey, how you operate, how
you think, you know, how you maneuver through this life.
A lot of times we don't do that, you know,
and those are great icebreakers.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Absolutely, I love that. I'm going to steal those those questions. Nice.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Nice, So but I thank you James for coming on
to the show.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Today, Maurice, Thanks for having me show, No.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Problem, of course, everyone his information will be in the
show notes. So if you're walking, running, jogging, whatever it is,
climbing the mountain, swimming underneath the sea, you know you'll
be able to get to it later on. Thank y'all
very much for tuning in today, and I'll talk to
you just a little bit later.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Thanks for listening. Follow Maurice Chisholm on social media to
stay connected and check back weekly for new episodes until
next time. That will never work, or will it
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