Authentic Leadership With Michael Geary

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, it's Adam Markel, and welcome Welcome back to another episode of the Change Proof Podcast. We're gonna have a great show today. I'm so excited for my guest, Michael Geary. Michael is the CEO of the Society for Marketing Professional Services and the SMPS Foundation. I know Michael. I've had the good pleasure of, of spending time with him and with his team at a recent event that I was the keynote for. And I can tell you this organization is amazing. Michael's insights about business, about marketing, and about life are truly special. So sit back And relax and get ready to enjoy my interview with Michael Geary. Okay, Mike. So it's fun to hear your bio, right? It's, it's fun to have for somebody to read, to share little snippets from your life, like encapsulate your entire career and your life all in a paragraph, all that good stuff, right? I know I always enjoy that. But my question to you out of the gate is, what is one thing, just one singular thing that's not in your bio, it's not a part of your CV, that you would love for people to know about you?

That is a good question. I have to stick with one. And I'll say first, you're right, like the— when you have to write a bio and people say, give us your story, bio, you know, like, well, I've been in a career for like 35 years now almost, and I'm proud of all the things that I've done. And of course, your bio is not about— oftentimes just like a list of things that you've done some accomplishments, but where have you been in your career? Certainly my sector of association management, how we measure or we look at careers is like, what organizations have you worked for and what has been your job? And it's often bios are written in a— numerical is not the right word, but in a date. There's a word for this.

Chronological.

Chronological. Thank you. What I wish people knew about me is I'm absent-minded sometimes. How about that? Coming up with chronological. But it's a chronological listing. But The— I would like for people to know about me is, which doesn't come across, I think, in the words, but I hope comes across when I meet people, is that I'm passionate about what I do and I'm passionate about people. And I know that's often— that's overused. People say that all the time. But my job working with an association, these are organizations of people. We don't build things, widgets. We develop products that we do sell for sure, and we do organize experiences, but it's all about the people ultimately. And so if you're not into people, then you can't be in this sort of job. And it's often what I explain to our boards of directors that I've worked with in my entire career is that working in our— this sector, and this I think is true for any nonprofit sector, you know, whether you work in a charitable organization where you're feeding people, or it's a humanitarian concern, children, whatever it might be, is that you have to really be into people. And that's your goal ultimately. And that's not reflected literally in my resume or my short profile that I offer people. But that's actually how I landed in this career ultimately, was when I was in my early 20s. is I really enjoyed being in leadership positions in my college fraternity, and there was an opportunity to work for the national office and doing leadership training, working with the other student members of the organization. And that really excited me and motivated me. And so I always have to remember that I got to come back to that. So, you know, life is not perfect. Life is not easy all the time. I have to come back to, okay, sometimes the mechanics are broken, But let's focus on the people and let's— that's what keeps me going.

Wow. Really, I love that answer, Mike. I do, for a variety of reasons. I mean, if I was going to condense that down to 3 words, this is going to be funny for you, right? But like, to answer that question in 3 words, I would say I'm into people.

I'm people, right?

Right. I mean, you are, because as you said eloquently, you couldn't be in the work Couldn't do the work you're doing. And I want to get into that. We're going to talk about the work you're doing because people listening don't know what that is yet. Right. But you couldn't do that work if you didn't, if you weren't into people. I love that because it kind of goes without saying, not everybody's into people.

No. And even less now, less so since the pandemic. I think that I'm, I've definitely been impacted by that experience of being separated from people. And we joke about it. In fact, with my peers and even with friends, et cetera. It's like, if you want me to get together for something, it's got to be really good. And so it's not like all people, if you will. There's sometimes some people, I'm okay staying home. Those people don't know who they are. No offense, but I don't mean that literally anybody specifically, but I just mean that I think we've evolved and we've certainly impacted by the pandemic and how we work with people. This interaction on video, even that, it's like, okay, I got to be really committed to the person. Because right now I'm just seeing an avatar on the screen. Who is this person on the other end? And you have to remember that it is, and remember that I need to act like a person also, 'cause I'm being watched. And I have to try to maintain what would be a normal personality, behavior, whatever, as we talk this way over video. And this is through colleagues, people I work with in my organization, members of my organization, our customers, et cetera. So there's definitely been a change. Now we think about how we work with people, our patience sometimes. I think we see that in society right now, sort of some acting out. And I think we've become a little more patient with people because we're looking for expediency perhaps, or like, quick, I can get on a call with you. But we have to remember these are human beings on the other end and be empathetic and think about them coming— where are they coming from on their end, if you will, of the video, whatever it might be.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I don't know how deep into the psychology you and I are either interested in getting or qualified to get. I mean,

not

qualified, but I say this, the way that we have interacted with people has changed so dramatically over the last several years. Obviously, the pandemic created a great deal of isolation, whether you were in a group of just yourself, as many people were, and were sheltering in place by themselves, or in small groups, little pods, if you will.

Pods. Yeah. Pods.

I think that was a term that was used for a bunch of things. But it really was isolating. I mean, it certainly shrunk our world down to something really insular. And so it's interesting that part of what we've learned how to do is to interact with people in almost like a video game setting. This is video. I can't— I mean, I can see your body language a little bit, but I, you know, but not entirely, right? And it's just different. So when we think about empathy and what it means to be able to feel or appreciate anyway what it's like to be someone else and what their experience is about. Has it become more difficult to do that because we see people in those avatars, almost as those avatars in a way we never did before?

No, and you're good, Adam, because I probably should zoom out on my camera because I see your hands. And we also, not getting too deep, but body language is important. And one of the challenges of video conversations is that we don't see the whole body and we don't know— our brain doesn't know how to process that. We're not wired for that. And we could talk hours about this. I know that's the point of our call today, but our conversation—

But it's fascinating.

It's real. And it's interesting right now, in all ways in business and how we're talking about people, we have to remind ourselves that it was just 2 years ago, which is nothing on the spectrum of humanity. That we— it really started 3 years ago. We all went through this together, but how quickly we forget sometimes. And like, by the way, we're not— this is happening because of that. I think we want to move on, we want to forget about it, but it's still just a long tail, long tail to this in all ways. How we do business, how we interact with each other, how people interact with us customers. I mean, you know what I mean?

Literally, I have full body chills from what you're saying, honestly. Yeah, because it's so true that our world, the trajectory, how we are evolving has— there was an inflection point that was just a short couple of years ago that almost seems— I don't know if it feels like this way to you, but it's a bit almost like a time, like a gap, like there's a black hole in space. Yeah,

there's pre-pandemic, which we kind of know where that is, and then Something in the middle.

Something in the middle.

And then now. And I am guilty too. I forget sometimes. I actually kind of forget what happened. I mean, not that there was a pandemic, but, oh, I had that conversation with you 2 years ago. It sometimes is a bit of a blur because it all just kind of ran together that we didn't go anywhere. We sat in our houses, apartments, and we just see a sameness for a long time that I don't know what happened. Just know something happened.

Indeed.

Over that time period.

I didn't, I didn't think it would go here at the moment, but I'm glad it did because I want you to tell us a little bit about SMPS. I want you to, so that people understand why it is that you, you're into people and why if you weren't into people, you couldn't do that work, lead, lead that company because you are at the helm. I want to understand, given what that organization has been doing for a long time, I think since 1973 or something, right? It's

a long, long history.

legacy. What was it like when everything literally just shut down the way it did? And, and, and how did you guys get back up on your feet? Sure.

Well, there's sort of 2 buckets here, or 2 communities, if you will. So I remember clearly the Friday afternoon we met with our staff in our office. We, we subsequently had moved, but we sat in the conference room at our other office space. And I remember sitting down with everybody and saying, You're going home. We're not going to work here. We've got the advice and directive of governments. And so don't come back. But please take everything with you. Take your laptop, computer. You have a camera, etc. Please be prepared and just be prepared to work at home for a while, which is the joke. Which is the joke.

The joke.

I remember that meeting.

Wow.

And very sharp memory around that. And fortunately, as an organization, we were actually prepared. Everybody was already equipped with a laptop computer. We already were using Skype at the time to do some work at home. We allowed people to do some remote work already. So it wasn't new to us, but we had everybody being at home. But we actually were like, let's go. We'll see you online on Monday. And I remember just a quick little story. That first week was beautiful weather in Washington, D.C., and I remember sitting on the patio of my home having a Skype call with other people in the office, and all of us commenting like, hell, what a beautiful day! I can't believe we're sitting outside because we never did that. We always sat in an office. None of us really had offices at home at the time, right? So as the business of SMPS. We moved along and we definitely had—

And give us the— just give us the acronym again for the folks that are—

Oh, sure. Yeah. So SMPS is the Society for Marketing Professional Services. And so what we do is we help people excel in their careers. And part of that is also helping their companies, their— we say their firms, architecture firms, engineering firms, construction companies, and all the different verticals in that industry. Everything from dam building to road construction, university housing, retail, etc., you know, government buildings, all the things that get built in this country. And we have members in Canada as well, so both countries around the world. And so we help them grow their careers and we help them grow their companies, and we do that through, through education and networking, etc., etc. And so the, the people side, we were cut off from the people. I mean, you know, we all— we do a lot of things in person, lots of events. We put on probably 10 conferences a year. All of that stopped. And so didn't every other organization. And most businesses stopped having staff meetings and business travel. So it took a long time for us to adjust. And then we had to, as a business, figure out our next financial model because the revenue from the organization comes from people joining, paying membership dues, and then people paying fees to attend events or to buy a webinar, which actually excelled during this time. But primarily, a lot of our activities were in person. So we had to rethink our entire way of doing business, that we can no longer rely on this as being a primary source of activity or revenue for the organization. We need to continue to thrive through this pandemic, however long it's going to last, which we all thought was going to be very short. Of course, everything seemed interim at the moment until months later, like, okay, this is a permanent or semi-permanent situation. So with people, but we had to figure out a different way then to interact with our members. And so we organized a lot more online. We know that people wanted to still get together, but we— so we created online activities. We had lots of Zoom, which was really the primary thing at the time, which kind of grew to be the primary software. So we did a lot of things on Zoom. We found other online applications where you could have networking events. which you like virtually have like little rooms. You can go from room to room and have discussion topics. We could be on, on a business topic like, how are you responding to proposals now that you can't do presentations in person? But also rooms like, what are you watching on Netflix? So we kept business there for sure, but we also need a little levity, little light conversations of how are you having fun and how are you surviving or thriving through This experience, so we our whole business changed in that moment, and it continues to impact us today. We still think about that, and it's a one of my earlier point is we think about how do we anything we do has got to be really good because people we want people to show up. They want to be there, but nobody wants to waste their time. Nobody wants to I mean just to be really kind of blunt about it. Nobody wants to get dressed up, if you will, and I'm not projecting this on all people. I'm included here. If I don't feel like it's going to be worthy of my time to be there. So the expectations for organizations like ours has completely changed. And it is not a hard adjustment, but it is certainly consuming to always be Disney World or Amazon. And especially now that individuals have gotten so accustomed to shopping online that there's an expectation that there's more immediacy in how you deliver experiences, services, products to people. But we're in the people business. Like, it is people that design and build things. It's our people that create those business opportunities for those companies. But one of the things that's different from perhaps a lot of other industries is that the architecture, engineering, and construction industry remained in business because, for one thing, a lot of that work is outside. Construction, of course, is primarily an outside activity. And there are already so many things in the pipeline that companies couldn't just say, well, we'll just have to wait. They were already designing, they were already perhaps building, all the work was going. So all the companies in this industry had to change the way that they interacted with each other. And actually, there was a bit of a gap or delay in that the bandwidth on computers to design is not the same as necessarily my MacBook, excuse me, it requires different computing power. And firms generally didn't have that in mobile formats. So they had to work out systems of, okay, 3 of us will go into the office and then we will evolve and develop and get the technology so you could work remotely for all the safety concerns. But we all know the supply chain issues that took a long time to get computers that would service this multibillion-dollar industry and every other industry. So interesting juxtaposition of the organization that services the industry along with the others, American Institute of Architects, the American Council of Engineering Companies. There's many more, Associated General Contractors. They still— their members were still in the field and still working almost normally. And yet the organizations that were servicing them, we could not mirror that. And we try to be close to that with them, to kind of be in the trenches, if you will, with our members, like how they're working, we want to. And so we know that they know that we're here for them and available, but it changed everything at that time as well for us and for them. So it's interesting, almost sitting, not sitting on the sideline, but from a higher 30,000 view, there wasn't one way in how it should work. And how to do the things.

Yes.

But we know people counted on us, so we still had to get it done.

Indeed. I'm thinking you guys at that level that were that height, let's say 30,000 feet to see the, the way those businesses were operating. They've changed, and I would say probably forever, meaning the way people are working today is different than it was before the pandemic and likely not to resemble what it was like before the pandemic anytime soon, if it, if ever at all. Are you seeing that? Are you seeing that the hybrid model or even more virtual, etc., that that has really become the norm in your membership. Guys have like 7,500 members or something, right? You have a huge—

That's right. Yep. And we represent 1,000-something, like 4,100, 4,200 companies. There's the— so, you know, for sure, the construction portion of AEC, architecture, engineering, construction— construction's got to be the— sorry. That has, I think, kind of gone back to normal. And, you know, they're dealing with other issues, other people issues in the construction industry.

But they have labor challenges.

They have lots of labor challenges, which has always existed. And it's a little more— it is much more difficult now. It's not unlike any other industry really looking for talented or any labor, you know, to come fill the gaps. But, you know, as time has gone on, so generations have entered the workforce. So we know that the youngest of these millennials, or Gen Z, excuse me, Gen Z are now entering the workforce. They're about 23 years old or so. And so their last years of high school or early part of college was all remote. So they're comfortable working that way. And then everybody else had sort of like this hybrid mixed situation. So companies are wrestling with that right now. They're looking like we look to what are the big employers doing as models, because they have the talent, the research capabilities to figure it out, what works. In the Washington, D.C. area, people look to Amazon as a major employer, the federal government, other major Fortune 500 companies. What are they doing? And then we think about, does that work? Would that work for us or another company? So firms and companies are trying to figure that out, right? There's a sense of can we get back to what was before, but recognizing that's never going to happen. And how do we get there? And it's no different than any other industry. Generational conflicts between everyone should be in the office every single day to know I need to work and I want to work. And, you know, the shortage in labor— and I don't want to use labor like in talent— people who are qualified to be engineers and architects and construction managers who have a college degree or are pursuing or have licensure to do so, to protect the public, they don't always agree. Some want to be at home part-time, some of them want to be in the office all the time. So there's— I think that's probably the way now, at least for a while, until— I don't know if it will change or evolve. I talk to CEOs of firms all the time and they talk about it. They're struggling with the tension of competing interests And some— I know we have to talk about generation, but the generational differences in how we want to work or how we expect people to work for us. But at the same time, we know that the AEC industry is booming. Like, it is gangbusters. There was certainly a slowdown a bit during the early days of pandemic, as I mentioned, because they're trying to get work done and get it organized. But now people are very busy, and that's really the biggest challenge is We need more people to be architects and be engineers now, not in the pipeline too, but right now. So employers are definitely being flexible because they want to get the work done, period.

Indeed.

Yeah.

And so you began to do your events differently. I mean, a big part of your— the event space is one of your verticals. It became more— I would imagine it was all virtual for a period once you made that transition. What are you seeing now? What is the event space looking like for you? you all kind of 3 years further on?

Sure. And I'd love to hear the answer from you, Adam, because you spend a lot of time in events also, and that's how we met in one of our events. Yeah, I think sort of what I've said is that people want to be really motivated about it and know that's going to be a worthwhile event. Fortunately, and I'll say this, it's not because of me, but we have a really great reputation. And our brand is strong among our members. And so they can trust with us that when they pay the fee or they get on a plane or whatever it is, that they're going to have a really great experience. Didn't we get it right every single time? Sometimes the coffee's cold, but they can trust that we're going to get the job done for them, and they're going to have a meaningful, impactful event. We know that because people tell us this when they do the surveys after the fact. But so we, we actually went through a time period of transition where we had an in-person thing and we had a virtual option. We've kind of done with that now. Effectively, we're just really doing all of our key activities in person, but we are doing a lot more online. So it's not an and/or, it's a yes and.

Yes.

Yes, we're doing this and we're offering a lot more online activities. The industry is designing and building, but as I said, it's about people have to do that. And so one of the things we do is bring people together. for that purpose. So we have to still offer that. They build these relationships and networking and business opportunities because they're learning together. Certainly we're not having cocktails over virtual, maybe not, but it's really they get to know each other and learn. As they're learning together, they build their relationships in the network that way. So we're doing it yes and all the ways now, much as we can.

That's what I'm seeing. I have been seeing for a while as well. I mean, We were using Zoom. We brought Zoom to our company thanks to our COO back in 2015, '16. It was really early in, in their business model and they had great customer service. You could literally call them up. I'm not knocking Zoom right now, but you could call them up, get a person on the phone. They, they fixed whatever it was immediately. It's changed just a little bit since they scaled more, more than they probably could have imagined. But I find that the virtual events can have tremendous impact, and you can really facilitate at a deep level. I have an affinity for live in person, and I, and I think you and I are simpatico there. And I was actually able to be at one of your events, your pinnacle event most recently, and I was thoroughly impressed with the experience that people had. Not that, I mean, the hotel was beautiful. All of that was, you know, sort of impeccable. And, and all that's what you'd expect, expect with a first-class event. But what I'm referring to is what I heard from participants when I was with them, without them even knowing that I was there. You know, I was there to facilitate speaker for them. And it was that what I heard in those moments that really impressed me. So there was a capstone project that was provided as one example, and people really, you know, they got into it. They were ready. But I, I think it's interesting that you bring up the fact that for people to kind of get out of there, break away from the, the screen and being in this mode of, hey, I I could be, you know, I'm in my t-shirt today. I'm wearing a change-proof t-shirt, but it could be with a jacket and a tie and, and I could be wearing my pajama bottoms. I mean, this is, or, or my slippers, even if I'm in a full suit, right? I mean, this is what people have gotten used to. So for them to, to have to actually get dressed fully, get in a car, go to the airport, fly someplace, spend time in an air— in a, in a hotel, et cetera. It really does. The bar, the standard for what makes it worth it has changed, it seems. Qualitatively, there's a difference between an event today and an event 3, 4 years ago. Is that your— that's been your experience too, I suspect.

Yeah, I think it was good. I'm going to add to that, and thank you for the nice words. You have to be intentional about it. You have to talk about it. You need to train to it. Our staff who are customer service people, if you will, we talk about these things. We're having events. We're like, okay, this is how we're going to Treat people. This is how we're going to treat our guests for coming to the event. This is how we're going to support them. This is our expectation. And so it doesn't just happen by chance. You have to really work at it and talk about it and try to create a culture around it. You try to do this first within your own organization, like just how we work with each other first, but also then that transfers out to when people interact with the organization. And we all have had bad experiences with a lot of your retail outlets or travel companies that are just awful. Yes. And why aren't you working at this better, more differently? Travel may be peaking right now, but it may not always. And why aren't you getting at it? And that's actually how we choose event space and host facilities. That's part of it for us. That's important that we have that conversation with the leadership team of the hotel or wherever it might be, or event space. These are our expectations for service by your staff. And so you better have people— people should be ready to be checked in when our members arrive and all of the things. So because we feel that anyone that works with us is an extension of our brand because we picked them, we chose them. And so they represent us in a way, and they're certainly reflective of our values and expectations. That's a whole other podcast around choosing vendors.

And oh my goodness, that's so true.

Yeah. Making sure that it's not— and not just because you're concerned they're going to say the wrong thing. That's also a concern. But they are, they are representatives of you. And if you're going to pick someone, pick the right ones, that they're going to carry through that brand, that brand when they're interacting with us directly or with our, with our members or our customers.

I'll shout out to the Four Seasons in Minneapolis. I mean, that was where I was for that event with you all, and that hotel and their staff, they were amazing. I mean, and I, I know it only because, I mean, I enjoyed all my interactions and facilities were beautiful. I mean, it's a Four Seasons. You, you kind of expect that. But I also had to do a virtual event while I was there. It just turned out schedule-wise that I had a virtual event, important one to do. And they were phenomenally helpful for, to me in regard to that because there was an issue with internet that happened to be the case. And their team was, you know, they were just incredibly responsive to me. I don't know, a leader of an organization, you know, we all have our pet peeves or the things that are most important to us. The one thing, I don't know if you can, if this is the same for you these days, but communication, as cliché as it sounds, it is one of these things that That I, I truly believe maybe, you know, sort of the, the, the calling card of a, a well-run or impeccably run organization. Mm-hmm. Because when the communication is, is impeccable, when it's really good, even if the problem isn't solved, and in the case of the Four Seasons thing, the problem wasn't solved. We had a workaround and all that, but they had a problem with a vendor. And so it was an issue, but the communication was so impeccable.

Mm-hmm.

Their responsiveness was so spot on that it was— I could be empathetic. I was able to be understanding, and, and the relationship was strengthened by that. Yeah. And, and I think, you know, today with people that don't answer, don't respond to emails, that don't respond to text messages when that's the form of communication, it's pretty remarkable to me. And, and again, I, I know there's psychology that, that goes behind this, but to me, it's one of those things that it's a back to basics. You know, if we were talking about football, we'd say it's blocking and tackling, or in some other analogy, we, we'd Okay. Something like that. But the simplest thing is you get an email and you don't know how to respond. It's a part of this avalanche that people face every day. It's just as easy in 3 seconds to say, received. Thank you. I'll get— and if you could say, hey, I don't know that I'll get back to this for a week, that's even better. Right? But point being, you don't, to use the term, ghosting folks. And I think that That is itself a, a distinguishing feature because I work with a lot of organizations, both on the front end of events that they put on because they bring me in to speak, etcetera. But we, our consulting firm, which is called WorkWell, has these longer-term engagements where we dig into these things. And it's just remarkable how poor communication is within some of the, some of the biggest, most well-known, publicly traded often companies out there and their communication is just abysmal. And it's, it's one of those areas that, you know, again, I think the pandemic didn't contribute favorably to that, but it's something that I don't know. Is that a thing that you see? And, and, and if it's not that, then what would be that one thing as, as a CEO that you go, man, if I could just, we could just get this thing dialed in, everybody'd be better off?

Sure. Well, 2, 2 thoughts. One, I wanna go back just quickly, but to reiterate and reinforce that Brands can differentiate in what is perceived to be a homogeneous industry, which is hotels. There's millions of hotel rooms in the world, or— and but a brand can differentiate in that. And yes, it can cost more money for sure, and the guest's got to pay for it. But the Four Seasons brand is fantastic. We use it almost exclusively for this specific conference. It's for senior-level staff. It's actually not much more expensive than really most hotels, but it provides an experience for our members, and we want them to feel like they're being taken care of. And that's what you're going to get there. And I'm not being paid by Four Seasons, but we keep going back to them. And, you know, something you said, you talked about stress impacting people, and really it's not the stress, it's the lack of recovery from stress, which I love. And I remember you saying that, and I keep reiterating it to myself. That's actually part of our formula in this conference, is that when you're done for the day, and it's not a stressful conference, but it's definitely an intense conference, you can go up to your room and it's nicely appointed and it's relaxing and they've made up the room for you and all the things. And you're like, okay, I can escape from the tension of the day and then in a really beautiful environment. And so that's part of our formula, is that we're at this conference, it's not just— it's a hotel room and a ballroom. It is intentional because we want them to have that experience. And what they do well in communications is that they have an app that actually is a person that's responding to this app. It's not AI. So when you check in, they will ping you through the app, encourage you to download it. And if you need anything, question, what time is coffee served in the morning? Within like 5 minutes, someone is responding. Like, it's communications fantastic. It's 100% perfect? No, but it's by and large pretty good. So, yeah, the other story, there used to be this standing column in the New York Times business section Sunday, maybe in the magazine, actually forgot now, but it's been a few years, but it was called The Corner Office.

Yes.

They interviewed CEOs of companies. Do you remember this? Unfortunately, they did away with it. I thought it was one of the best things that the New York Times used to do on a regular basis. And they interviewed the CEO of a company that provides social media services to major corporations. So you interact with— I'm going to make it up— McDonald's on Twitter, or you're tweeting them something, or you're on Threads now. It's really not a McDonald's employee that's responding to you. They have a contractor that's managing that. So this company did that sort of thing for major corporations. And one of the questions they always asked CEOs in this column was, what are some of your biggest challenges and how are you overcoming them? So they asked her, what is your biggest challenge? Her biggest challenge was communications in their company. I know that sounds ironic. She says words like that. I run a communications company. This is what we do. Exactly. That's her biggest challenge. I'm like, amen. Yes, it's a people thing. Back to people. You can't fix all of it. I am not a perfect communicator. Ask people here, they'll tell you sometimes I'm not great at it, but we have to work at it and be intentional and strive to be better communicators. And so reading that gave me a sense of comfort, that column, like, okay, it's not me alone. I have a friend who used to work for a major technology company. I'm not going to say which one, but you probably use their devices every single day. And he had an important role as sort of a ringleader among product development. And I was saying, it must be amazing working for this company that's worth $1 trillion. You have all the resources in the world you want. How is it? He's like, oh my God, it's so frustrating. The communications internally is awful. You do communication, you create devices, help us communicate. He's like, yeah. So I say that to my— I remind myself these stories occasionally to say, okay, I'm not alone in this challenge. This is common. But reminding myself also Obviously, like, okay, don't fall into that trap. I gotta think about it. You know, I need to be more intentional about these things in a leadership role especially. But also being a leadership role, I forget or I'm not aware of that I have blind spots

and

I have overlooked something or I wasn't aware of something I should have been aware of for any whatever reason. I still am accountable for that. So the sort of the human group you know, the societal things of just challenging communicating, but then as individual, something I got to remember. That's, you know, takeaways from you listening to our program, reminding myself, you know, that I need to take care of things myself too. Like, I need to be— I'm responsible for myself. And I think probably the biggest challenge in communication around leadership— and you never asked this question, but I like to tell this story too— is that there's a really great book called Dr. Friday's Laws. Dr. Friday was a psychologist who wrote a book. It's, it's, I think it may be out of print now, but he basically, a summary of all the things you learn having thousands and thousands of patients or clients. He has the top 10 things that he learned, and they're so simple, but they're good reminders. And one of the things he says is that I am only— it's so many words, you know— I'm only responsible for what I say and do. I'm not responsible for what you say and do. So knowing that, I knew the need to act in the— how do I put it? I can't be afraid to say and do what I need to say and do. We're not talking about yelling at somebody or calling them their name. That's not excusable. It's not that. But being afraid or anxious around what someone might do in response is not my responsibility. That's your responsibility. I'm only responsible for what I say and do. I know it'll impact you. I have to consider all that. The other thing about communications is that the psychology thing was like, people do not change. You have to change first, then they'll change. I bring that to work every day. I cannot make anybody do anything. I can change myself, either my expectations, or maybe I am not communicating well, and I have to think about that as I'm addressing a challenge, whatever it might be. So exactly, those are pandemic or not, like, those are just sort of universal perpetual challenges.

It's an inside-out game, both personally and professionally, but organizationally speaking as well. So I Mhmm. I really resonate with what you just said. And somebody said to me the other day, and I thought it was a great way to, to phrase this when it comes to communication and being blunt was what he was talking about, being blunt. He said, if you're being helpful with your clear communication and maybe even that blunt communication, if it's intended and is helpful, then by all means, that's what you should do. But there's a difference between it being helpful and being hurtful. And that's where we, to your point, have the control because you know what your intent— no one knows your intent except you do. So if your intent is to be hurtful, it's probably a good idea to not communicate that way, not send that email, not make that— give— provide that, quote, feedback. Because it— you know that you're looking to take something away from somebody. And we do have to check ourselves whether we're in the roles we're in or in other roles that you're not being passive aggressive with what you're doing. What is your true intent? Is it to be helpful? If it's helpful, then say it like it is.

Yeah. In saying that I'm only responsible for what I say and do does not excuse me or of Being impolite. Exactly. Being passive aggressive, et cetera. But at the same time, I don't have to hold back on what I want to say if I know it may not be comfortable. And there's a whole theory around candid, not candid conversations. We had a speaker at a conference several years ago, and this is pre-pandemic, so my brain is a little foggy. Oh my gosh, I wish I could think of the name because You may even know of them, but basically they teach people how to confront. The skills of confrontation are important to learn, but one thing you learn is that you do have to confront. Yeah, but even doing that, we think confrontation is awful. Confrontation can be actually very helpful. Can be very helpful.

It is.

It doesn't have to be bad news. We can use that word. It's a loaded word, but it is what it is.

It is a loaded word. I've taught this topic in the past as well because it is something I'm interested in. And have come from it from the standpoint of rules of engagement. We won't go there now, but it, it is a very important thing for us to look at. What, how do you engage? What are the rules for engagement when it comes to communication in relationships that are personal as well as those relationships that at the, in the office, in or out of the office, etcetera? I have 2 questions as we wrap things up, and I feel like there's a further discussion. So we might, might schedule a second part to this because—

Okay.

I don't know where the time has gone, but

not a psychologist, but I play one on podcasts.

Me, me too. So wanna get your take on the economy at the moment. And then I, I wanna circle back to that, what you said earlier about how when I was presenting to your folks, which were, as you say, your pinnacle leaders, C-suite or senior level leaders, and we talked among other things about how we deal with stress. And first understanding is stress is not the issue. That is not the enemy. And we can't blame it for burnout or mental fatigue or even anxiety or any of these things. It's really the lack of recovery that's the challenge. I wanna understand for you, what, what have you done with that? You might still be noodling on it. You may have evaluated where you have appropriate recovery or where it is that you're increasing areas for recovery for yourself. I want to, I just wanna get your own take on that. But first, what's your feel about the economy? Because so much of the event space and gatherings in general has to do with corporate perception. of where we're headed in the market?

Sure. Well, there's no truth, if you will, in the economy. Numbers don't lie. People say, of course, numbers don't lie. How you interpret numbers are up to the individual. And I've known and seen— known personally, and then I've seen over my career in this built environment, spent most of my career, variety of economists, and they come out of different perspectives. Sometimes there's a little political influence. Sometimes it's just a perception, a perception of numbers and how they want to think about them. And so there's no truth. But here's what's being said now, and then you can interpret it. And I'm mostly an optimistic person, so I like to interpret things more optimistically and think there's good opportunity in things. But economists I've been seeing and hearing from is that the— in terms of our industry, it's very strong. Like we— I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of momentum there. The federal infrastructure bill is having a huge impact immediately, in the immediate sense, but long term, because roads don't get built in a day, using that old expression. Dams don't get built. Schools don't get built in a day. All the things that this infrastructure bill will support That's going to take time, will be multi-years, multiple years of there being design and then implementation. What's nice about it, at least for a lot of companies, is there's some guarantee that there's funding.

Yes.

Federal level, state level, so they can make decisions. So that helps. That's sort of actually where the truth is, is like, how do we read the economy? Because we have these other factors that are not yet playing a direct role necessarily. And how in spending, employment. But there's kind of a 2-hour-plus long presentation. So I'll say in summary is the expectation right now, people are thinking that things are strong, things are good. There will be a mild downturn next year, maybe Q3. That's expected. It's not expected it's going to be hugely significant. Not probably not a recession. There's crystal balls, but they're not perfect. A little cracked, a little cloudy. No one can really project because no one projected the pandemic. I had a meeting today with a colleague and we said we do scenario planning for multi-years out, but we didn't think about the pandemic happening. Things can happen. There's going to be a political change in the US next fall. How will that play a role? People have opinions, but there's no truth. We don't really know how that's going to be unless we look at past behavior. There, I think people feel good about it, but because I think as humans, we're a little afraid sometimes when there's too much good and there's got to be the other side of the coin. And so I do know that companies are just generally across the board are starting to think about contracting and pulling back a little bit and looking at overhead costs. Yes. They're looking short term. This is really a long-term thing, but how is artificial intelligence going to be utilized to save— when they save overhead, they really need labor. That for us, an organization that supports people doing marketing business development, that's an overhead cost. Like marketing professionals do not bill for their time. They go out and capture business. They work on keeping business, but it's an overhead. And so there's concern in a broad sense of like, what is AI going to do, if anything, that will impact people, the employee? Right now we think it's just going to change their job, some of their job functions. But you still need a human to do lots of the things. But I do know that companies are thinking about how they might pull back on some things, especially larger firms have huge overhead. Can they get more efficient? And every company should always be thinking that, of course. And it varies in our industry based on if it's a publicly traded company or if it's privately held. Most companies are privately held, but there's still— there's more pressure on the publicly traded companies to meet the value demands of their shareholders. And so they are thinking about it differently. So that's my economic report. Generally, I think we're good for a while. There may be a downturn, but I'm already thinking about it. And that's actually one of the concerns. I remember back in another presidency, George H.W. Bush, he refused to use the word recession because he knew the minute he said we might be in a recession, it's happening, people would contract because the economy is very psychological and have a visceral

reaction to certain terms.

And that's right. And we'll change our behavior. But I have another friend who's an economist who, one of my favorite expressions is, people can afford what they want. It doesn't matter if you want it, you're going to figure out how you can afford it. So companies, I think, need that mentality also. You want the business, you're going to figure out how we can afford to go, to go get it no matter what else is happening.

Yeah. And we work in the private and the public sector. So everything you said just aligns very well with what we're feeling.

Oh, good. I just made it up. So I'm glad.

Yeah, no, that's good. I like to say your budget is a reflection of your values. That's another way of saying what you just said. Oh,

absolutely. Yeah. That's right.

Yeah.

Where would you spend your money?

That is exactly. And it's interesting where companies often see what is sort of mandatory required, you know, it's, it's not negotiable and things that they somehow think are less not negotiable in those times when they're looking to be a bit more conservative or, you know, hedge their bets just a bit. So it's, it is interesting. And, and the public versus private, it is a different Positioning there too. Yeah. So I wanna, I wanna get the answer on that recovery piece.

Recovery.

Before we get there, just for a second, the AI piece is, is really quite profound, and there's a lot of unknown and uncertainty there. It's one of the things I love, actually, when we present, we present on AI as well, but not from a technologist standpoint, but from the standpoint of resiliency and within, from an operational standpoint as well as from the side of wellness and how people interact with new tech and what it means to them and what they— how they respond in the face of that kind of change. And this is probably the most dramatic change I've seen, or potentially since the internet began to move people in, in a very different way. So—

Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's— we're just— and we're just, like, not even in the first inning yet. So it's pretty remarkable. So on the side of recovery, what have you taken to heart from a couple of weeks ago when we were together? I'm putting you on the spot, of course, but I just wanna get your thoughts on that.

Sure. Well, seeing the emblem behind you, the lifeguard, I was thinking about the story you told and the challenge that unfortunate situation you experienced as a lifeguard, and you recovered from that. And that we can— it's good to know those stories because we have to remind ourselves you can recover from adversity. There you always can. It may not be easy, it may not be overnight, but you can do so. And that story is a good reminder of that. I don't know if that's why you tell this story, but that was my takeaway. It was like, okay, bad things happen in the world and I just have to figure it out and I need to move on and find a way to move on. And it can be on your own or through professional assistance or otherwise. But the issue around— or your question really about recovery and stress there. A lot of organizations are under, are feeling a lot of stress because we are in this change still. Like it's not done. Not to beat the proverbial dead horse. Pandemic ain't done and its impact on our society and our businesses. It's just we wish it could be and we can ignore it, but it isn't done. And I don't say that to be dramatic. It's just real. And so there's still, you know, people still wearing masks. There's some stress in society about, should they still wear masks? They're choosing to. They feel that's the right thing for them to do. And that— so those things we need to think about, stress, anxiety about that still around, and all the normal things as well. For me, I am really not good at it historically in the recovery phase. And so your statement when you said that really helped me as well, reminded me I've got to take recovery time. And— Excuse me. So I've always been the kind of person that when I went on vacation, I would still check my email for work. And I went on vacation recently. I said, I'm not checking email. If you— if there isn't a crisis, I am available. There's a crisis, then call me or text me because I'm not going to be on my computer. And I think I was about 85% on that. I did peek a little bit because there are people I couldn't communicate that to. So I wanted to make sure they weren't ignored. And if they had a crisis that I— they weren't aware that I was on vacation, for example. But I've tried to practice that, and you have to practice at it and get comfortable with, in this case, disconnecting from my work umbilical cord, my lifeline. It's my livelihood, and disconnect from people. And I think also something I worked on as a person is knowing who I am and what my comfort level is with people, if you will. And I'm— I think some of this comes with growing older and maturing, you build different skills and sort of not comfort levels, the right word, strengths, muscles to react differently. And so if I'm going to be in a situation where it's a huge crowd and I'm feeling anxious about that, I take a moment to think about it and say, okay, am I— do I have the strength right now to deal with this? Do I want to get on the subway? That's excellent. Or do I want to wait for the next train? Yes, both answers are correct, but I want to make sure I'm doing it eyes wide open. I'm just not going to throw myself in. And I understand this whole theory around sensory issues, like you have phobias, et cetera. You sometimes want to jump on it. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about over time I've learned what's right for me, what's not right for me, and I have to make a decision. Is this good or bad for me now? Or whatever it might be. Healthy, unhealthy, enjoying and not enjoying.

It sounds like a small thing, but it's not because it's a It's a self-awareness. It's a sensitivity to self that isn't selfish. And I think that's part of what, you know, we try to get across is that it isn't being selfish and it isn't wrong and it isn't hurtful or disloyal to your company or to your family to actually take care of yourself. So—

And I think that's, you know, that's where the anxiety comes in for a lot of people is I'm going, this is not what people expect of me, or I'm going to disrupt something for somebody else. So let's just take a silly analogy or example of getting on a subway train. We're going off to do a thing. And am I feeling anxious about this really overcrowded train? And my anxiety is, I think, like a lot of people, especially being American, is something bad going to happen on the train? Are we going to get trapped in the tunnel? There's all that kind of things that percolate up. That happens to me too. But I also think, oh my God, if we don't get on the train now, we're going to be late for the thing, and that's going to impact the people on the way. So sometimes, you know, I've learned also that you have to build up that strength to say, I'm not comfortable doing this right now, and get acceptance from whoever you're with. And being honest with them, like, this is not a good thing for me right now. But I think if you're like that, if you interact with especially your spouses or your family and you're sharing with this regularly enough, they know that you're not being dramatic, that this is just you being real. Like, let's just wait a moment or whatever. situation might be, and then we can go at it another time, or let's wait 15 minutes, whatever.

Yeah. The final thing I want to just say regarding that is how important it is not only for you, and I'm really happy to hear that some of this, that what you're doing in increasing your consciousness around that, being aware of it, then acting upon it like you did on your vacation, even 85% or whatever it might be. Like you say, nothing's perfect. That's not the goal anyway. That it provided not only a benefit to you, but it has this other, this other benefit that I don't know that we're always really fully aware of. And that's how other people respond to us, the way that we actually impact other people's lives by what we do or don't do. So to me, when you did that, whether you know it or not, you gave permission to others that knew, that were in that circle, that were aware that you were away and weren't gonna be necessarily checking each and every moment that if they were to take a vacation or say when they were to take their PTO and do something, that they could actually unplug because the expectation would be the similar, you know, that they could actually disconnect and that things would still be okay because their leader did the same.

Yeah. No. You have to be a role model in such circumstances. And I think even the, like, this another sort of silly thing is like, I'm on the stage a lot for addition to lots of presentations, speaking, introductions, et cetera. And I get stage fright too and get anxious about going up on the stage full of strangers. I tell people that and I'll call them like, I'm feeling kind of nervous. But it just creates the environment to say it's okay that you do too feel that way because I know you do feel that way. And someone just has to say it. It's like, you're right, we're all anxious. I'm not a professional person. You may feel that too, Adam, sometimes.

Of course I do.

You do this all the time.

If it matters to you, And that's— I won't digress on that, but just if it matters to you, if you have a pulse, if something matters to you, then of course you're gonna have some feelings about it. I mean, that you want it to go well, etcetera. So that's entirely, right, to be expected. Right. It's what you do with it. It's how you then reframe it so that it's useful to you. And in your way of reframing it, you share it. Your transparency allows you to be more relatable, and that helps you in that moment. For me, you know, sometimes I will share those thoughts, but I have a different approach because I speak all the time. And for me, it's useful that I rec— I remember, I remind myself that it's not about me. And that's just applicable in so many areas of my life that anytime I make it about me, doesn't seem to go well. When it's not about me, it's about service, when it's about others or love or anything else, right? That's important. Then it goes a whole different way. I just, I gotta tell you, Mike.

I'm so What's that? There's 5 principles of leadership, and one of them is modeling the way. And it's all the things— showing up to work on time, getting your work done. But it's also, I think, saying to people, it's okay to feel whatever it is you're feeling. And then so I will— one way that I can model the way is let people know I'm also feeling it, or I'm feeling this, and like, please, it's okay, you can too. Like, I don't have to put up this shield of I'm the CEO and I I'm an animatronic and I will go tackle it. It's like I have a pulse. And

we're still built like, you know, we're still prehistoric in the sense that when we, when we have uncertainty, you know, I, I wrote a book about change and the gist of it is about uncertainty. When there's uncertainty, people make stories. And most often, it's the worst case scenario. So if the CEO, who's like the person who represents the ultimate power in an, in an organization, is guarded, is covert even, and you don't know what they're thinking or what's their agenda or any of that, you make up stories, and often it's the scariest story possible. But when that person is transparent and real and relatable in the way that you're talking about, they don't have to be afraid, and it's a whole different environment. So you, whether, again, you've done something, you know, to me, that's just, it's remarkable. I meet a lot of leaders, and more often than not, the school of thought there is the less they know, the better. And often a lot of CEOs are figuring it out as they go along anyway, whether they wanna believe, admit that or not. And so they don't, certainly don't want anybody to think that they don't have all the answers. So they perpetuate that whole myth. So that's a whole other podcast.

Sorry,

not the

expert on everything.

Oh my goodness. Well, Mike, I have so enjoyed this conversation and I really do wanna schedule a second one cuz I just feel like there's a lot other topics you and I can edit at a non-expert level. I will get the book

out. We'll read about Dr. Friday's laws and we can discuss all that because it's all very impactful on employment, buyer situation, customer service.

Oh my. Yeah, that's a great— so you brought that up. I'm just going to say this to our listeners and those that may be consuming in another way. The show notes are going to have information, of course, about Mike and SMPS, as well as any references that were brought up today. And we'll see if that book is still in print, which would be great if it was. People can go out and get it as well. So show notes will have all that. If you have a comment or a question, adamarkel.com/podcast, you can leave that question or comment there for, for Michael or myself, and it won't be a bot and it won't be AI that answers it. It'll be us. So feel free to do that. We appreciate it. And I'll have a wrap-up, so I'll give you more information in the wrap-up. But for now anyway, Mike, I just wanna say thanks again for your time, and I love this conversation.

So, yeah. Same. Thank you, Adam.

So appreciate it. Well, no surprise there. Michael Geary really provided so many insights today. The depth and the breadth of the conversation that we had about business was just super, was super. It was, it was great to be part of it. I so enjoyed that conversation with him. I kept my, finding myself wanting to ask him more and more questions, which is why the podcast went a couple of minutes longer than, than it typically does. But I think the juice Was certainly worth the squeeze, as they say. I hope you find it to be the case as well. You know, we got to talk about everything from where the market is today and thoughts about where it's headed as well, without sort of prognosticating too much, without trying to pretend we, any of us have a crystal ball. I think we got to really discuss some, a lot of those things. And Michael's definitely got an optimistic view, cautiously optimistic view. Of course, we talked talked about marketing. We talked about the event space, his, his role as a CEO of a, of a major player in the Association of Marketers for Architects, Engineers, and Construction Professionals and their teams. And that association's been around since 1973, so literally celebrating their 50th year in business for a reason. So I love the conversation. I think it was tremendous insight there that can be brought back to your own teams, could be shared with others. As is always the case for me in doing this podcast, my hope is that it has a ripple effect so that whatever you've heard that might make sense to you, something that you've learned even, that you're willing to share it with others around you. That's what creates that ripple effect. That is what we're after in doing this. So if there's somebody that you think would really benefit from listening to these insights or ideas that you heard today, please feel free to share that. With a colleague, a friend, a family member, even, that is super helpful. And again, that, that only contributes to our mission here in doing this work. Also, if you've got a comment or a question for Michael or myself, feel free to go to adamarkel.com/podcast and you can leave that question or comment there. If the show really lit you up and you wanna leave a review, it's just stars. I think you could do more than that if you wanted to, of course, but those 5 stars are super helpful. In terms of the algorithm getting this podcast in front of more people. And lastly, checking out your own level of resilience. How resilient are you? How resilient is your organization? How resilient are your teammates? Even feel free to deploy this tool. It's free. It's complimentary. It's our way of giving back. And it is something that we ourselves gain great insight from. So do that by simply going to rankmyresilience.com, rankmyresilience.com. 3 minutes or less, you're gonna get your own particular score in 4 zones of resilience, and you're gonna also learn about resources to help you to elevate your capacity and your productivity and your happiness and your wellbeing and your work-life harmony and all those things that we all want so much out of our work experience and our non-work experience as well. So that's a tool that's there for you. We appreciate you being a part of this community. As always, I wanna say thank you for that. And for now, I will just say. Thank you. Ciao.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.