[00:00:00] Leaders underestimate the power of why.
[00:00:04] I'll tell you, you wake up in the morning,
[00:00:06] you're like, I'm going to work,
[00:00:08] I get dressed, you go to... You're just you.
[00:00:10] But in your mind,
[00:00:12] you know things. You know
[00:00:14] what's happening and why it's happening,
[00:00:16] what the consequences are, because you're the leader.
[00:00:18] You get to work and you forget
[00:00:20] the people you're leading, they have no idea.
[00:00:22] They don't have your insight,
[00:00:24] they didn't have all the data that you got.
[00:00:26] So they're sitting there going,
[00:00:28] what's going on? Why is it going on?
[00:00:30] What are these guys doing? They don't know what they're doing.
[00:00:32] And you're thinking, why don't they understand?
[00:00:34] It's because you didn't tell them.
[00:00:36] This is William Tincapping
[00:00:39] and Ryan Leary and you're listening to the
[00:00:41] You Should Know Podcast.
[00:00:43] Today we have Phil on and we're going to be talking about
[00:00:45] how do you address
[00:00:47] the leadership
[00:00:49] that was before you. If anything
[00:00:51] went wrong, especially in controversies
[00:00:53] or things that happened that maybe you just
[00:00:55] have no control over, how do you deal
[00:00:57] with it? And Phil's an expert.
[00:00:59] He's also got some great stories there.
[00:01:01] During the pre-show we talked a lot about safety
[00:01:03] and great stories there as well.
[00:01:05] So we might actually be talking about
[00:01:07] safety stuff. Lack of fingers.
[00:01:09] Phil, how many fingers do you have?
[00:01:11] Yeah, well I'm good.
[00:01:13] So Phil,
[00:01:15] do us a favor and introduce yourself.
[00:01:17] Great. Well it's great to be here.
[00:01:19] Thanks very much.
[00:01:21] I actually run a company called Eagles Flight
[00:01:23] where we operate out of Canada.
[00:01:25] We're in about 20 different countries around the world.
[00:01:27] And we specialize
[00:01:29] in leadership
[00:01:31] development and culture transformation.
[00:01:33] But we do it in a way that is really fun.
[00:01:35] You know how you
[00:01:37] go to class and you get lectured at
[00:01:39] and you don't remember it and it's boring
[00:01:41] and you don't really learn that much.
[00:01:43] So we bring experiential learning to the
[00:01:45] training and
[00:01:47] you get involved in some really fun
[00:01:49] activities and then we debrief them
[00:01:51] and you learn by doing.
[00:01:53] So it sticks with you
[00:01:55] and it's pretty impactful.
[00:01:57] In a nutshell, that's it.
[00:01:59] I've been married for 50 years.
[00:02:01] I have two kids
[00:02:03] and a Siberian Husky.
[00:02:05] Where in Canada are you?
[00:02:07] Just outside of Toronto.
[00:02:09] You were going to say Alaska.
[00:02:11] I was going to say Alaska. I was this close.
[00:02:13] I was this close
[00:02:15] and then I thought of Toronto.
[00:02:17] Because Toronto in the summer
[00:02:19] is gorgeous.
[00:02:21] It is. In the winter,
[00:02:23] cold and wet.
[00:02:25] Not my favorite city to visit.
[00:02:29] Actually, I grew up in California
[00:02:31] and when I got married
[00:02:33] I said to my wife, let's move down to the States.
[00:02:35] It's always
[00:02:37] in your bones.
[00:02:39] She says no, no, I'm from Canada.
[00:02:41] We'll stay here.
[00:02:43] So here we are.
[00:02:45] 50 years later you're still here.
[00:02:47] She won that battle.
[00:02:49] That's easy.
[00:02:51] As you talk about,
[00:02:53] as you were bringing us in,
[00:02:55] the word lecture sounds painful.
[00:02:57] Yeah.
[00:02:59] It does.
[00:03:01] When you say lecture,
[00:03:03] it's like a cringe.
[00:03:05] I can also see that
[00:03:07] being a part of how you train.
[00:03:09] It's like the antithesis.
[00:03:11] No one wants to be lectured to.
[00:03:13] People come into our courses
[00:03:15] and they think they're in the wrong place
[00:03:17] and you're crossing a desert
[00:03:19] or you're politicians.
[00:03:21] They go, what is this?
[00:03:23] Once they go through it,
[00:03:25] the power of the debrief,
[00:03:27] that's exactly the way I behave on the job.
[00:03:29] We can say, okay, based on that
[00:03:31] let's show you a better way
[00:03:33] that will make you more productive.
[00:03:35] People go, okay, I get it
[00:03:37] because it's not a case study
[00:03:39] or a role play or just getting
[00:03:41] PowerPointed to death.
[00:03:43] When executives take a new gig,
[00:03:45] they're not just taking on
[00:03:47] the new job and new technology
[00:03:49] and new employees and all that other stuff.
[00:03:51] They're also taking on
[00:03:53] the legacy of that company
[00:03:55] before them, especially in their position,
[00:03:57] the people that came before them.
[00:03:59] How do you start teaching
[00:04:01] people about that?
[00:04:03] I think you need to really
[00:04:05] make a distinction between the accountability
[00:04:07] and the responsibility.
[00:04:09] If I take on a role
[00:04:11] and I don't like the culture
[00:04:13] that I've inherited or I don't like the way
[00:04:15] in which we're dealing with the customers
[00:04:17] or I feel that the processes are
[00:04:19] inefficient, that is not
[00:04:21] a result of my accountability.
[00:04:23] I didn't commit to that.
[00:04:25] I inherited that.
[00:04:27] So for a
[00:04:29] leader to come in and say, well,
[00:04:31] that was my fault,
[00:04:33] it doesn't make sense.
[00:04:35] Now you can't say it's not my fault
[00:04:37] and therefore I can't deal with it.
[00:04:39] But your new accountability
[00:04:41] is to say, okay, we don't like
[00:04:43] the consequences of the decisions
[00:04:45] that were made. My accountability
[00:04:47] is to deal with consequences.
[00:04:49] So I think that that is really important
[00:04:51] because otherwise
[00:04:53] you take on a
[00:04:55] sense
[00:04:57] of responsibility that is
[00:04:59] artificial. It's not my fault
[00:05:01] that the way we are. So therefore
[00:05:03] I have the freedom, I feel the freedom
[00:05:05] to do whatever I need to do
[00:05:07] to change the consequences. Because
[00:05:09] I don't have to live with the past, that was somebody
[00:05:11] else's. And that
[00:05:13] was their accountability.
[00:05:15] So that then means, okay,
[00:05:17] my focus as the new executive
[00:05:19] is less about what
[00:05:21] did I inherit and
[00:05:23] more about what
[00:05:25] are the results, what's the impact,
[00:05:27] what are the consequences of
[00:05:29] what I inherited, and that's the
[00:05:31] thing that I'm going to change.
[00:05:33] Which then makes it more
[00:05:35] objective, it's less emotionally
[00:05:37] driven, you don't get people saying,
[00:05:39] well I supported that and was I wrong
[00:05:41] because I supported it?
[00:05:43] I was on his team.
[00:05:45] Eliminate all of that. Listen, gang,
[00:05:47] we have what we have, we don't
[00:05:49] like what we're getting, let's change
[00:05:51] what we're getting, let's move forward.
[00:05:53] So I think that's the first
[00:05:55] thing.
[00:05:57] Which leads
[00:05:59] to some really interesting thought
[00:06:01] because then the next thing, okay,
[00:06:03] we've got to be realistic here. So
[00:06:05] what do we have? We don't
[00:06:07] like the fact that the way the
[00:06:09] customers are being treated,
[00:06:11] it's just not right. So
[00:06:13] let's not sugarcoat it, let's
[00:06:15] try to be transparent, let's be
[00:06:17] honest. And I think
[00:06:19] one of the things that I think is really
[00:06:21] important is leaders
[00:06:23] need to be honest, they need
[00:06:25] to be transparent.
[00:06:27] I worked for a guy, this amazing story
[00:06:29] here, but I worked for a tremendous
[00:06:31] leader and he had to
[00:06:33] shut down a factory of a thousand people.
[00:06:35] And I was the head of HR.
[00:06:37] And he said,
[00:06:39] I'm going to tell them that we're going to close the
[00:06:41] factory next year.
[00:06:43] You can't do that.
[00:06:45] No, no, I'm going to bring them in.
[00:06:47] They're going to take the TVs, don't do that.
[00:06:49] Exactly!
[00:06:51] He said, no,
[00:06:53] I'm going to treat them like adults and
[00:06:55] I'm going to tell them the situation.
[00:06:57] So he brought them in, he said, listen, ladies and
[00:06:59] gentlemen, we are going to have to close
[00:07:01] the factory, it will be a year from now.
[00:07:03] I'm sorry, but I have an obligation
[00:07:05] to care for the health of the
[00:07:07] enterprise. And this is just not
[00:07:09] pulling us
[00:07:11] down.
[00:07:13] I understand the impact on each of you
[00:07:15] and I will do everything I can over the next
[00:07:17] year to make it easy
[00:07:19] for you to find work. But I'm telling
[00:07:21] you, before we close it,
[00:07:23] I need your heart, I need your
[00:07:25] commitment because we still
[00:07:27] have to operate for this next year.
[00:07:29] And I sat there and I thought,
[00:07:31] okay, man, we're in for trouble.
[00:07:33] And I'm the head of HR.
[00:07:35] And the
[00:07:37] people responded brilliantly.
[00:07:39] The productivity that year
[00:07:41] went up. And I looked at
[00:07:43] him and I said, that was amazing.
[00:07:45] He said, you need to treat
[00:07:47] people like adults.
[00:07:49] Tell them the truth. Be honest.
[00:07:51] Exactly right. Be honest.
[00:07:53] Now, there are some things
[00:07:55] legally you can't say.
[00:07:57] Outside within that framework.
[00:07:59] So if you encounter a situation
[00:08:01] that you've inherited from the previous person,
[00:08:03] I think the first and most important
[00:08:05] thing is bring the folks together
[00:08:07] and be honest, be transparent.
[00:08:09] See, these are the good things about it,
[00:08:11] but these are the things that aren't good and we have to
[00:08:13] change them. And here is
[00:08:15] why. And you know,
[00:08:17] I think guys very often
[00:08:19] leaders underestimate
[00:08:21] the power of why.
[00:08:23] And I'll tell you, you wake up in the morning,
[00:08:25] you say, I'm going to work, get dressed
[00:08:27] and go to, you're just you.
[00:08:29] But in your mind, you
[00:08:31] know things. You know what's happening
[00:08:33] and why it's happening and what the consequences
[00:08:35] are because you're the leader. You get to
[00:08:37] work and you forget the people you're leading.
[00:08:39] They have no idea.
[00:08:41] They don't have your insight. They didn't
[00:08:43] have all the data that you got.
[00:08:45] So they're sitting there going, what's going on?
[00:08:47] Why is it going on? What are these guys doing?
[00:08:49] They don't know what they're doing. And you're thinking,
[00:08:51] why don't they understand?
[00:08:53] It's because you didn't tell them.
[00:08:55] It's kind of like the
[00:08:57] safety conversation that we were having
[00:08:59] pre-show where
[00:09:01] they bring someone in like yourself, you go through
[00:09:03] all this training on safety
[00:09:05] and how to be, but why?
[00:09:07] Why do we need this?
[00:09:09] And I think that that matters a lot
[00:09:11] transparency and honesty
[00:09:13] and the why. You've mentioned
[00:09:15] a couple of things. Leadership,
[00:09:17] you've mentioned why
[00:09:19] and a couple of times already
[00:09:21] and I'm kind of sensing
[00:09:23] this is important to the entire process.
[00:09:25] Absolutely.
[00:09:27] The question I have real quick for you
[00:09:29] and I'll let you talk is how much
[00:09:31] of this is,
[00:09:33] I'm likening this to
[00:09:35] a coach, a sports coach,
[00:09:37] professional sports coach that comes on
[00:09:39] to their presser
[00:09:41] and they say, well,
[00:09:43] yep, I have to do better. I have to
[00:09:45] do better. When we know it was the players
[00:09:47] that actually
[00:09:49] didn't perform, right? They
[00:09:51] didn't perform well to win
[00:09:53] the game. How much of
[00:09:55] the work you're doing with these leaders
[00:09:57] is press
[00:09:59] work to be able to
[00:10:01] communicate to the
[00:10:03] team as opposed to
[00:10:05] them actually needing
[00:10:07] to learn how to handle the
[00:10:09] consequences of what previously
[00:10:11] happened.
[00:10:13] Okay, that's a great question.
[00:10:15] Can I just pause
[00:10:17] and slip back
[00:10:19] to the why for just one minute?
[00:10:21] Just because something
[00:10:23] you said, Trigger,
[00:10:25] if you take your car in to
[00:10:27] get repaired and the guy says
[00:10:29] you need new brakes
[00:10:31] and it's going to cost you a thousand bucks,
[00:10:33] you go, okay, can it wait?
[00:10:37] If the guy says you need new
[00:10:39] brakes, it's going to cost you a thousand dollars
[00:10:41] and if you don't, your brakes
[00:10:43] are going to fail in a day,
[00:10:45] you go, okay, I'll pay the money.
[00:10:47] Rationale
[00:10:49] being given the why
[00:10:51] changes the way people
[00:10:53] respond. And because
[00:10:55] the guy knows
[00:10:57] that you're going to fail
[00:10:59] in a day, he tells you to pay for the brakes.
[00:11:01] Are we talking about brake pads or rotors? What are we doing?
[00:11:03] It doesn't tell you. The leaders
[00:11:05] have got to see the world
[00:11:07] through the eyes of the people. So
[00:11:09] I'm just saying that is so important
[00:11:11] when you talk about any kind
[00:11:13] of leadership or any kind of taking over
[00:11:15] a different situation. So piggy
[00:11:17] backing off that comment to your question,
[00:11:19] I think
[00:11:22] to answer it, I need
[00:11:24] to help you understand something. Every
[00:11:28] organization is concerned
[00:11:30] every leader and executive
[00:11:32] is concerned about results.
[00:11:34] That's it. It's all they care about.
[00:11:36] Results. You go to the board, it's
[00:11:38] results. The shareholders' results.
[00:11:40] So organizations are driven
[00:11:42] by the need to produce results
[00:11:44] whether it's profit or safety or environmental
[00:11:46] responsibility or whatever it is.
[00:11:48] So if that
[00:11:51] is the case and you put
[00:11:53] pressure on results,
[00:11:55] it's not really a significant
[00:11:57] way to address the problem.
[00:11:59] We need more.
[00:12:01] Exactly.
[00:12:03] Everything that
[00:12:05] happens in a company
[00:12:07] happens because of what people do.
[00:12:09] So forget about
[00:12:11] results. Results is a
[00:12:13] byproduct of behavior.
[00:12:15] So if you really want to
[00:12:17] change the results,
[00:12:19] you have to change the behaviors.
[00:12:21] And that's where great coaches come in mind.
[00:12:23] Exactly.
[00:12:25] Because they focus on the process.
[00:12:27] Yeah. So you have to think, okay,
[00:12:29] what behaviors are
[00:12:31] driving these results and
[00:12:33] how do I change the behavior?
[00:12:35] So to your question, Ryan, if I'm a coach,
[00:12:37] is it my behavior
[00:12:39] that is producing the results?
[00:12:41] Or is it the behavior of the people?
[00:12:43] And I'll give you an example.
[00:12:45] One of the things that's
[00:12:47] very, very difficult in organizations
[00:12:49] is to get the full
[00:12:51] potential of the workforce.
[00:12:53] How do I get people to give me their all?
[00:12:55] The moment you go
[00:12:57] in that direction
[00:12:59] and you begin to say, okay, I am
[00:13:01] willing to give you more,
[00:13:03] does this mean that
[00:13:05] you're going to be able to give me
[00:13:07] more?
[00:13:09] Does the organization
[00:13:11] know how to absorb that more?
[00:13:13] Are the leaders threatened?
[00:13:15] Do they take action
[00:13:17] or do they just ignore you?
[00:13:19] Because if they ignore you, you're never going to give them more.
[00:13:21] So you then discover,
[00:13:23] okay, it's all
[00:13:25] very well to say
[00:13:27] I want a certain type of
[00:13:29] behavior from my people,
[00:13:31] or in your case, the athletes.
[00:13:33] But if I get that, how do I, as the
[00:13:35] coach, respond? Because I may not
[00:13:37] like that or I may not agree with it.
[00:13:39] So you have this
[00:13:41] sort of yin and yang
[00:13:43] that the outcome is a blend
[00:13:45] of the way I am led,
[00:13:47] the quality of my
[00:13:49] leader, and the environment
[00:13:51] within which I have to function.
[00:13:53] So you can be
[00:13:55] willing but the environment may not absorb
[00:13:57] it or the environment may absorb it,
[00:13:59] but you've not been taught how to be willing.
[00:14:01] So you know,
[00:14:03] somebody once said, I was in a meeting
[00:14:05] once, a very senior
[00:14:07] guy was talking to 100 people.
[00:14:09] And he
[00:14:11] was talking about the challenge
[00:14:13] of leadership.
[00:14:15] And a lady put her hand up. She said,
[00:14:17] excuse me, may I say something?
[00:14:19] So this guy said sure. So she stood up.
[00:14:21] She said, I have a
[00:14:23] PhD in nuclear physics.
[00:14:25] I work in a
[00:14:27] rocket propulsion lab.
[00:14:29] I am a rocket scientist.
[00:14:31] And now I have
[00:14:33] to lead people. And it is
[00:14:35] way harder than being
[00:14:37] a rocket scientist. Turns out this is a rocket science.
[00:14:39] Exactly. And she got
[00:14:41] a standing ovation because people think
[00:14:43] that leadership, you know, wow, you just lead
[00:14:45] people. It is the most difficult
[00:14:47] thing to do well.
[00:14:49] So I don't get an answer
[00:14:51] to that, Ryan, to give you that.
[00:14:53] Absolutely.
[00:14:55] People, most Americans don't,
[00:14:57] because they don't know history in general,
[00:14:59] they don't understand that the South
[00:15:01] generally in particular
[00:15:03] was 40 miles away from
[00:15:05] Washington, D.C. and Gettysburg.
[00:15:07] Had he won
[00:15:09] in Gettysburg, it was an easy
[00:15:11] 40 miles to get to D.C.
[00:15:13] And President
[00:15:15] Lincoln would have had
[00:15:17] to surrender and we'd have
[00:15:19] two countries. It was
[00:15:21] this close. People have no idea.
[00:15:23] They're like, oh, no, the Union, they were so
[00:15:25] no. Later
[00:15:27] in the war, yes, they had more people and
[00:15:29] more guns. Okay. But there was
[00:15:31] a moment at Gettysburg
[00:15:33] where had Lee
[00:15:35] taken your advice
[00:15:37] of just explaining the why?
[00:15:39] Because when they went up Pickett's
[00:15:41] Charge charging up the hill,
[00:15:43] had they actually, had he explained
[00:15:45] it to the other generals,
[00:15:47] just the why?
[00:15:49] Then they would have understood,
[00:15:51] okay, the war is this,
[00:15:53] we've been
[00:15:55] winning the entire
[00:15:57] summer. All we have
[00:15:59] to do is fight another
[00:16:01] 40 miles and we're done. It's
[00:16:03] over. We can have our own country,
[00:16:05] the other people can have their country, we can do whatever we want.
[00:16:07] He didn't
[00:16:09] explain the why. And
[00:16:11] so his generals didn't believe
[00:16:13] in what they were doing. Neither
[00:16:15] did everyone else. So the question is,
[00:16:17] that's a history lesson for everybody,
[00:16:19] just kind of go back
[00:16:21] and look at Gettysburg because it was
[00:16:23] this close.
[00:16:25] Now, why I bring up
[00:16:27] the history lesson outside of just
[00:16:29] it's fun to teach people history is
[00:16:31] the why is the leadership
[00:16:33] communicating like you
[00:16:35] said in that instance with breaks.
[00:16:37] But then I want to see what
[00:16:39] you think about the watershed of
[00:16:41] everyone else understanding
[00:16:43] the why. What the military
[00:16:45] calls clear intent.
[00:16:47] So the military operates
[00:16:49] a little bit different than corporations
[00:16:51] because everyone knows the mission.
[00:16:53] It isn't just the generals, it isn't
[00:16:55] just the lieutenants or whatever.
[00:16:57] It's everyone knows the mission.
[00:16:59] Everyone knows the missions, they know what exactly
[00:17:01] they're supposed to do in a modern military.
[00:17:03] But in modern corporations,
[00:17:05] the front line people have
[00:17:07] no idea what the mission
[00:17:09] is or what the why I guess
[00:17:11] is a better way of phrasing it. So how do
[00:17:13] you once you teach,
[00:17:15] especially the leadership team
[00:17:17] themselves, how do they
[00:17:19] take that? What's your approach or what's
[00:17:21] your take on taking what they've
[00:17:23] learned and then moving
[00:17:25] it throughout the organization?
[00:17:27] That's a great question.
[00:17:29] It's a great question because
[00:17:31] it gets to the heart
[00:17:33] of what the difference is between a great
[00:17:35] leader and a mediocre leader.
[00:17:37] You cannot just
[00:17:39] explain the why.
[00:17:41] So there are five
[00:17:43] things you have to do. This is more than
[00:17:45] you want to know. No!
[00:17:47] This is exactly what I want to know.
[00:17:49] The first is you have to
[00:17:51] give them clarity
[00:17:53] on the benefit
[00:17:55] of what it is
[00:17:57] you want them to do. We are changing
[00:17:59] from the old to the new.
[00:18:01] So in Lee's situation, you're tired
[00:18:03] of war. You're tired of your friends
[00:18:05] getting killed. We make it 40
[00:18:07] miles, war's over.
[00:18:09] Exactly. And in the
[00:18:11] benefit, you have to do two things, which
[00:18:13] you do in your story.
[00:18:15] You have to deal with the emotion and the
[00:18:17] intellect. The war is over,
[00:18:19] that's the intellect.
[00:18:21] You can rest, that's the emotion.
[00:18:23] You can go home to your wife. Exactly.
[00:18:25] And people, again,
[00:18:27] leaders you have to understand we're humans.
[00:18:29] You're managing living flesh and blood. You're not
[00:18:31] managing machines.
[00:18:33] So you've got to deal with
[00:18:35] the emotions and how people feel
[00:18:37] and what they think and all that.
[00:18:39] So when you're helping people
[00:18:41] understand here's why we're doing it
[00:18:43] and the vision for the outcome,
[00:18:45] you have to deal with the emotion
[00:18:47] and the intellect. So that's the first thing.
[00:18:49] The second thing you have
[00:18:51] to do is you have to deal with
[00:18:53] expectations.
[00:18:55] You used to
[00:18:57] expect this.
[00:18:59] Now you should expect
[00:19:01] that. And everybody's
[00:19:03] lived through COVID. You expect to come
[00:19:05] in and chit chat at the water cooler.
[00:19:07] You expect to be able to move
[00:19:09] freely and have casual
[00:19:11] conversations. Now I'm on Zoom.
[00:19:13] Okay, there's no water cooler. There's no
[00:19:15] casual conversations. There's no intimacy.
[00:19:17] And I'm in my pajamas.
[00:19:19] It's like, okay, how
[00:19:21] am I supposed to build a sense
[00:19:23] of camaraderie?
[00:19:25] And if a leader says, well, I don't know,
[00:19:27] we just do. But that's no good.
[00:19:29] What do you expect from me? Do you
[00:19:31] expect me to spend five minutes
[00:19:33] in front of every meeting to
[00:19:35] chit chat? Do you expect me to talk about
[00:19:37] my daughter?
[00:19:39] But if you don't clarify the expectation,
[00:19:41] then the why is simply
[00:19:43] abstract. So that's the second thing.
[00:19:45] The third thing is
[00:19:47] you have to tell what
[00:19:49] you know when you
[00:19:51] know it. I'll give you an example.
[00:19:53] I was head of HR
[00:19:55] for a while in the company.
[00:19:56] A lady called me up and said, Phil,
[00:19:58] you need to come in and fire my people.
[00:20:00] I've got five people
[00:20:02] in the lab and they're no good.
[00:20:04] I went over.
[00:20:06] She said, you see these five people? They've all got to go.
[00:20:08] I said, why didn't you
[00:20:10] have to go?
[00:20:12] Well, we've got this brand new
[00:20:14] equipment. We've got this new technology.
[00:20:16] They're overwhelmed.
[00:20:18] They can't cope. They don't
[00:20:20] get it. They're not in sync.
[00:20:22] I need a fresh crop.
[00:20:24] I said, OK.
[00:20:26] When did you order the equipment? Oh, a year
[00:20:28] ago.
[00:20:30] Did you tell them you were ordering it?
[00:20:32] I'm the boss. Why would I tell them?
[00:20:34] Did you bring the manufacturing
[00:20:36] to do some training before the equipment
[00:20:38] showed up? Oh, no.
[00:20:40] So what you did is you basically
[00:20:42] knew a year in the dead
[00:20:44] heads this was going to happen
[00:20:46] and you did nothing. I should fire you.
[00:20:48] Painting the entire routine,
[00:20:50] the entire workplace.
[00:20:52] Exactly.
[00:20:54] This third issue, which is share
[00:20:56] the vision, manage the expectation,
[00:20:58] you've got to communicate what you know
[00:21:00] when you know it.
[00:21:02] Otherwise, the people are not
[00:21:04] going to be able to follow you and
[00:21:06] understand what's going on.
[00:21:08] So Phil, I want to interject
[00:21:10] here real quick. So share it when you
[00:21:12] know it. That's interesting to
[00:21:14] me because a lot of people just
[00:21:16] in general life
[00:21:18] forget about leadership.
[00:21:20] They wait for the perfect moment
[00:21:22] to share information.
[00:21:24] How do they discern between? I mean, obviously
[00:21:26] it seems like common sense to me, you know
[00:21:28] it. But there's got to be
[00:21:30] a process or a time
[00:21:32] that they can kind of get a
[00:21:34] tool for to share that information.
[00:21:36] This thing is a perfect moment.
[00:21:38] You're right. The reason they
[00:21:40] don't share it is it
[00:21:42] is not a pressing issue
[00:21:44] for them because they know
[00:21:46] it.
[00:21:48] So
[00:21:50] if you think I'm a mid
[00:21:52] level manager, what are they doing up there?
[00:21:54] I wish I knew. The people
[00:21:56] below are saying the same thing about me.
[00:21:58] What is Phil doing?
[00:22:00] It's pretty straightforward.
[00:22:02] We forget. So the way you
[00:22:04] know as soon as you
[00:22:06] know it is you need
[00:22:08] to look to the people and say
[00:22:10] would they like to
[00:22:12] know what I know? And if
[00:22:14] the answer is yes, then you tell them then.
[00:22:16] You don't wait.
[00:22:18] Now there are sometimes, I mean
[00:22:20] there are sometimes when
[00:22:24] even if you were to tell them, they go, okay why are you telling
[00:22:26] me? I don't need to know that.
[00:22:28] So that's just good judgment.
[00:22:30] But most of the time it's like, well thank you
[00:22:32] very much. I'm not going to do anything with it but
[00:22:34] it's good to know.
[00:22:36] We have a phrase called filling
[00:22:38] vacuums. If you
[00:22:40] do not know something, you
[00:22:42] fill the vacuum
[00:22:44] with something that you have made up
[00:22:46] or someone has told you
[00:22:48] or you read on the internet that's
[00:22:50] folklore because
[00:22:52] nature abhors the vacuum.
[00:22:54] If you're not getting the truth,
[00:22:56] you're filling the vacuum with error.
[00:22:58] And now as a leader,
[00:23:00] because I waited, I got to undo
[00:23:02] the error and refill the
[00:23:04] vacuum with truth. You better
[00:23:06] tell them right away.
[00:23:08] It's looking through the eyes of the people that you work
[00:23:10] with and that work for
[00:23:12] you and just again having
[00:23:14] empathy and understanding
[00:23:16] okay, this is what
[00:23:18] they need to know. And again if they don't
[00:23:20] action, they don't need
[00:23:22] to action. I mean
[00:23:24] like in the case of the equipment being
[00:23:26] ordered, they don't need to do anything with that.
[00:23:28] But the fact that there's no surprises
[00:23:30] exactly
[00:23:32] makes me happy because hey listen
[00:23:34] we talked about it a year ago.
[00:23:36] The trainer, the manufacturer came in, they've done
[00:23:38] two, three trainings. There's no
[00:23:40] surprises here. Nobody's
[00:23:42] surprised. And they're trained and they're
[00:23:44] ready to go. Yeah.
[00:23:46] In that situation I would assume
[00:23:48] you're building
[00:23:50] excitement as well in the
[00:23:52] workplace. We're getting new equipment.
[00:23:54] You're not creating, yeah Ryan,
[00:23:56] if not excitement
[00:23:58] you're not creating a void.
[00:24:00] Because in communications
[00:24:02] they have a thing
[00:24:04] that's if you don't tell your story, someone
[00:24:06] else will. Yeah. And it's the
[00:24:08] same thing. There's a void there
[00:24:10] and instead of having
[00:24:12] that be filled with some other stuff that you
[00:24:14] have to undo, this is
[00:24:16] an easy, this would be an easy situation
[00:24:18] to say no, no, they knew, they're
[00:24:20] trained, they're excited
[00:24:22] or not excited. Even if they're not excited
[00:24:24] at least they're not
[00:24:26] in this particular instance
[00:24:28] at least they're not fighting technology.
[00:24:30] Right. And to your
[00:24:32] point, you know Ryan, the
[00:24:34] excitement addresses the human
[00:24:36] emotional component too. Right. So you get
[00:24:38] the intellectual, you know Willem you were saying train
[00:24:40] them, train them and you get the excitement
[00:24:42] you get the two together, you're golden.
[00:24:44] Now something
[00:24:46] you just said there William triggered a thought
[00:24:48] which is I'm off my five points for now.
[00:24:50] That's okay, we'll get back to you. You're on three. I know
[00:24:52] that there's two more. We're good. That's okay.
[00:24:54] You know
[00:24:56] leaders, you know what 360
[00:24:58] feedback is where I get feedback
[00:25:00] from my direct reports. Right. And
[00:25:02] executives will come to me and say okay so I got
[00:25:04] this feedback.
[00:25:06] Some people rate me a five
[00:25:08] and some people rate me a two. They're not
[00:25:10] even thinking about the people that rated them a five.
[00:25:12] That's a given. That's a given.
[00:25:14] Of course I'm a five. I say well
[00:25:16] here's the deal. The people
[00:25:18] that rated you a five align
[00:25:20] with your style.
[00:25:22] They're your factual
[00:25:24] and they're factual or whatever. The people
[00:25:26] that rated you a two do not align
[00:25:28] with your style. They like lots of detail
[00:25:30] and they like to talk about it and you
[00:25:32] don't like that. So your
[00:25:34] styles are incompatible
[00:25:36] and therefore they rate you as less effective.
[00:25:38] To which the leader
[00:25:40] will say yeah well I don't know what I should do about
[00:25:42] that and go well then you should get out of leadership.
[00:25:44] Because
[00:25:46] the issue of leadership
[00:25:48] you must learn
[00:25:50] to adapt your style
[00:25:52] to your various
[00:25:54] types of folks that you are leading.
[00:25:56] They're not going to adapt to you. Which means
[00:25:58] you also have to know how they want that.
[00:26:00] Exactly. How do you want your
[00:26:02] feedback? I was just going to say that.
[00:26:04] How do you want your
[00:26:06] feedback? When do you want it?
[00:26:08] How much detail? Do you want a lot
[00:26:10] of emotion? A lot of...
[00:26:12] You mean to tell me I got to do all that? Well
[00:26:14] I think that's the only thing you do if you want to be a great leader.
[00:26:16] Well Ryan this gets back to your coach
[00:26:18] players deal. Because
[00:26:20] in most group sports
[00:26:22] there's the coach that can
[00:26:24] basically say what talent do I have? Great.
[00:26:26] Now create a style and then go
[00:26:28] and then there's also coaches
[00:26:30] that have a...they have a
[00:26:32] process. They have a style
[00:26:34] and either players fit it or
[00:26:36] they jettison them. And I think
[00:26:38] the most effective coaches
[00:26:40] over time and also all kind of group sports
[00:26:42] are the ones that basically look at the talent and go
[00:26:44] okay what do I have? Okay.
[00:26:46] Yeah I can work with this.
[00:26:48] Or you accept what
[00:26:50] you have. Right. Knowing
[00:26:52] that some of them you're not going to get your best
[00:26:54] work from. But that's irresponsible.
[00:26:56] The board is paying you to get the
[00:26:58] best work out of everybody so
[00:27:00] adapt.
[00:27:02] How many
[00:27:04] leaders misunderstand
[00:27:06] their role?
[00:27:08] To the core... You could have just stopped that
[00:27:10] leadership.
[00:27:12] I would say... And what I mean by that
[00:27:14] is how many like they come in and say
[00:27:16] I need to increase
[00:27:18] revenues by X amount
[00:27:20] versus... And I
[00:27:22] don't really care about it. We.
[00:27:24] Versus
[00:27:26] a leader that comes in and
[00:27:28] says I'm really going to care about
[00:27:30] my people. The board's there.
[00:27:32] I get it. We're going to do
[00:27:34] it this way. Of the leaders
[00:27:36] you work with where do they fall?
[00:27:38] 80% are in the
[00:27:40] I don't really feel my job
[00:27:42] is to release human potential.
[00:27:44] 100%.
[00:27:46] Maybe 85%. I spend more
[00:27:48] my time saying your job
[00:27:50] is to release human potential than
[00:27:52] it is to be a good communicator.
[00:27:54] Because if I
[00:27:56] see your potential
[00:27:58] and I release it in the company
[00:28:00] I get ideas, I get innovation, I get
[00:28:02] involvement, I get contributions,
[00:28:04] I get improvement. All of
[00:28:06] which drives the organization forward.
[00:28:08] Now I need to be a good
[00:28:10] communicator, I need those things too.
[00:28:12] But those are weapons
[00:28:14] that I use to enable
[00:28:16] me to let you be as good as you
[00:28:18] possibly can be. So
[00:28:20] that is
[00:28:22] that's like
[00:28:24] the holy grail of leaders. The greatest
[00:28:26] leaders are more concerned
[00:28:28] about making you great and how do
[00:28:30] they do that than anything
[00:28:32] else. But that's few and far
[00:28:34] between. And it's not their fault.
[00:28:36] Because typically
[00:28:38] if you're a leader
[00:28:40] let's take an example
[00:28:42] I start my career and I'm
[00:28:44] working out on the
[00:28:46] highway and I
[00:28:48] dig the ditches. And then I get promoted, I get
[00:28:50] to operate tobacco. That's cool.
[00:28:52] Now I get to actually teach the guy that's doing
[00:28:54] the ditch digging. Then I get promoted
[00:28:56] again and I get to hire the guys working in tobacco
[00:28:58] and I get to do a little bit
[00:29:00] of analysis. So over
[00:29:02] my career I get promoted
[00:29:04] because of the things that I do
[00:29:06] with things.
[00:29:08] Not with people, but with things.
[00:29:10] And then all of a sudden I become
[00:29:12] a relatively
[00:29:14] significant leader and
[00:29:16] now I'm spending more time managing
[00:29:18] people than things.
[00:29:20] But how did I get there?
[00:29:22] By being good at managing things.
[00:29:24] So I apply the same principles
[00:29:26] that made me good at managing
[00:29:28] things to managing people.
[00:29:30] I tell you what to do, fix this, do that.
[00:29:32] But people are not
[00:29:34] machines. So my
[00:29:36] career now as I get promoted
[00:29:38] I'm using skills in
[00:29:40] my early career that have
[00:29:42] no relevance to what I now
[00:29:44] need to do as a people leader. So I meet a senior
[00:29:46] executive and I say, you need to release
[00:29:48] the potential of your people. They go, what?
[00:29:50] I just need to get them to produce more.
[00:29:52] You get backhoes to produce
[00:29:54] more. So they don't
[00:29:56] understand that. The way to solve
[00:29:58] that problem is
[00:30:00] to start your leadership development
[00:30:02] right away
[00:30:04] the moment you promote the guy from
[00:30:06] ditch digger to backhoe operator
[00:30:08] because now he's got to lead. You've got
[00:30:10] to begin to train how to lead
[00:30:12] people just like you train people.
[00:30:14] How do I operate a small backhoe, bigger
[00:30:16] backhoe, group of backhoe? But
[00:30:18] that doesn't happen. So it's not really
[00:30:20] the leader's fault that they're not
[00:30:22] focused on releasing human potential.
[00:30:24] They've never had a great leader. They've never seen
[00:30:26] their leaders as an independent model. They
[00:30:28] know no differently and they've been promoted
[00:30:30] for being good at managing things. So
[00:30:32] okay. So you've got to bring someone in
[00:30:34] to say there's a better way
[00:30:36] and they go, alright
[00:30:38] show me if you can show
[00:30:40] me. What they don't understand
[00:30:42] is they are missing
[00:30:44] huge productivity in the company
[00:30:46] by not treating people like
[00:30:48] people. It's the
[00:30:50] someone lacking potential. It's the watershed, too,
[00:30:52] so you're teaching your leaders.
[00:30:54] And it just it goes all the way down to the front line.
[00:30:56] Yeah, cascades down.
[00:30:58] You want my other two principles?
[00:30:59] Yeah, let's go for it.
[00:31:00] Why not?
[00:31:01] No, no, no, let's finish it out.
[00:31:03] I know.
[00:31:03] But here's the thing.
[00:31:04] If we don't ride, we're going to get emails from people like one of the other
[00:31:07] two things that was supposed to do well, because you need to complete the package.
[00:31:12] So I understand.
[00:31:13] I understand why we're doing what we're doing.
[00:31:15] And I'm clear on a vision.
[00:31:16] I know my expectations.
[00:31:18] You're telling me what I need to know.
[00:31:20] But practically speaking, every single day, what are my priorities?
[00:31:26] Because they are shifting.
[00:31:28] Now, the answer that most leaders do is well, do what you need to do.
[00:31:33] Okay.
[00:31:33] But I was already fully employed and now I have to deal with this change
[00:31:39] that you've inherited from the previous guy.
[00:31:41] I've got to do more.
[00:31:43] He's not going to work longer.
[00:31:45] So you have to say to me, okay, so this is what I want you to keep doing.
[00:31:50] This is what I want you to stop doing.
[00:31:52] And this is what I want you to start doing.
[00:31:55] I'll give you a great example.
[00:31:56] Stop, start, continue.
[00:31:57] Exactly.
[00:31:57] Start, continue.
[00:31:58] We met once many years ago with a group of folks and we celebrated one lady who
[00:32:05] had adopted some new software and she was the model across the country.
[00:32:09] And we went out and said, you know, you've done a great job.
[00:32:11] You're the model.
[00:32:12] We want to tell people how well you did.
[00:32:15] She said, well, thank you very much for the accolades, but I
[00:32:17] hate your stupid software.
[00:32:20] She said, well, I have a single mother.
[00:32:23] I used to get home at five so I could care for my daughter.
[00:32:26] And now I get home at six because of your stupid software.
[00:32:30] And the leader said, but why is that?
[00:32:34] She said, well, it takes me an hour to do what I used to do using your
[00:32:38] software and it takes me all day to do the way I used to do it.
[00:32:42] So I do it the way I used to do it.
[00:32:44] And then I do it with your new software.
[00:32:46] And the boss said, well, why are you doing it the old way?
[00:32:49] She said, I was never told I could stop.
[00:32:51] I don't want to let my customers go.
[00:32:54] And it was like, are you kidding me?
[00:32:57] Are you kidding me?
[00:32:58] But she's a relatively junior person.
[00:33:00] She's never been told stop.
[00:33:02] So she was doing both.
[00:33:04] And it was like when I heard that, I thought, okay, wow, we missed that.
[00:33:07] You got to tell people, stop doing that.
[00:33:10] Otherwise their priorities, they'll make them up.
[00:33:14] So that's the fourth thing.
[00:33:15] And the last is this is not one and done.
[00:33:19] You got to, you got to be doing it.
[00:33:21] You got to keep communicating, keep dealing with expectations,
[00:33:24] keep dealing with the part.
[00:33:26] You got to stay with it until the world that you inherited is gone.
[00:33:32] And the new world is in place.
[00:33:34] It doesn't happen because you were a great leader for two months.
[00:33:37] Typically it will take you a while to get to where you are.
[00:33:41] Typically it will take you a while to get where you want to go.
[00:33:46] If where you started from is not where you want to be.
[00:33:49] Well, and I also, that assumes that there's, it's a reachable,
[00:33:53] that that's a reachable destination, meaning you might not ever get there.
[00:33:58] Yeah.
[00:34:00] Like success reachable here.
[00:34:02] Well, well, because of circumstance and because things change, you might
[00:34:06] want to be constantly innovating.
[00:34:08] So yeah, you get to where the static state of, okay, you're not doing
[00:34:12] what the previous regime did and you've resolved that you're doing
[00:34:15] everything that you want to do.
[00:34:17] And the team is they get it.
[00:34:18] They get all five things great.
[00:34:21] But there could be innovation on top of that.
[00:34:24] Absolutely.
[00:34:24] And you build it, you keep going.
[00:34:26] It's just keep going.
[00:34:27] It's more how do I transition from the old to the new?
[00:34:29] Right.
[00:34:29] And now the new is the beginning of the beginning of the future.
[00:34:32] And that's right.
[00:34:33] Just keep innovation.
[00:34:34] Last question I have for you, Phil, as you mentioned,
[00:34:36] experiential learning, which I know what that means, but I don't think
[00:34:41] the audience has a full grasp of kind of that type of learning.
[00:34:44] So tell us a little bit about it.
[00:34:46] All right.
[00:34:50] Okay.
[00:34:50] Let me see.
[00:34:51] I have about four hours now.
[00:34:52] No, no, no, no.
[00:34:53] You got four minutes.
[00:34:54] You're good.
[00:34:55] Give us a Cliff Notes version.
[00:34:57] Experiential learning is I put you into a situation, think of it as a game.
[00:35:02] Maybe I'm racing across the desert or I'm in the old West or I'm managing
[00:35:06] a really cool sailing company, but there's a lot of tactile things.
[00:35:12] There's decisions that I make.
[00:35:14] Um, I'm interacting with five or six people.
[00:35:18] There's, I have maybe money that I can spend to buy things.
[00:35:21] I maybe have customers, but really I'm just playing a really cool game.
[00:35:27] And you would think, and people think, okay, that's just a
[00:35:29] phenomenal game, little game.
[00:35:31] Yeah.
[00:35:31] All right.
[00:35:32] But embedded in the game are all the things I want to teach you.
[00:35:36] And I'll give you a quick example in a moment so that you don't realize
[00:35:40] that and you bring to that game who you are, you're not, it's not a
[00:35:44] case study, it's not a role play.
[00:35:46] You just, you and that you are.
[00:35:47] And as a result, you get a consequence, a score and the
[00:35:52] score is inevitably less than it could have been.
[00:35:55] So then we debrief and say, why was it less?
[00:35:58] And they go, well, because we rushed, we didn't think ahead.
[00:36:01] We didn't plan, we whatever.
[00:36:02] Okay.
[00:36:04] Is that how you work at the job?
[00:36:05] They go, yeah, it is.
[00:36:07] So let us show you how the game was designed to replicate your world.
[00:36:13] It's really a metaphor.
[00:36:14] Right.
[00:36:14] So we have about 40 of these depending on the need.
[00:36:18] And I'll give you a quick example because it'll highlight in one of
[00:36:22] them, you have to cross the desert and you have to buy food and water
[00:36:25] and there's sand storms and super heat, but you have a limited amount
[00:36:29] of time, but there's this old guy that back before you leave.
[00:36:33] And he says, I can tell you about the desert.
[00:36:35] I could tell you about the desert, but I'm lonely.
[00:36:37] So you're going to have to spend time talking to me.
[00:36:40] Nobody talks to them because they want to get off into the desert.
[00:36:44] So at the end we said, okay, guys, you didn't perform very well.
[00:36:47] Why didn't you talk to the old guy?
[00:36:49] Well, you know, it was going to take time.
[00:36:51] Okay.
[00:36:51] Let me put that in different language.
[00:36:53] There was information available to optimize your
[00:36:56] success that you chose to ignore.
[00:36:59] Is that true on the job?
[00:37:00] And they go up.
[00:37:02] It's institutional knowledge.
[00:37:04] Exactly.
[00:37:05] So it's okay.
[00:37:06] So now because they went through this two hour game and they rejected
[00:37:11] the old man's input, now I have common language.
[00:37:15] So for the rest of the day, I can say who's the old man in your
[00:37:18] organization, what information should you be using and people go,
[00:37:21] okay, you're right.
[00:37:21] You're right.
[00:37:22] So that's experiential learning.
[00:37:24] I love it.
[00:37:25] I love it.
[00:37:26] It's so great.
[00:37:27] Phil, we could talk to you for hours, but it turns out you got like a
[00:37:31] job and some things to do, but thank you so much for coming on and
[00:37:36] actually, and then really helping our audience.
[00:37:38] I appreciate you.
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