The Conscious Leadership Mindset And Empowering Genius Teams With Jeffrey Deckman

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 Barkel and his inspiring guest explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change.

Proof. Well, you're in for a treat today on the Change Proof podcast. I've got a gentleman by the name of Jeffrey Deckman. I'm just going to read a little bit of his bio here and we're going to get right into the conversation. But you're going to love this conversation, I do believe. Jeffrey Deckman is a national and international award winning author and innovator. On next Evolution Conscious leadership mindsets, models and methods. He is a leadership and organizational development consultant specializing in helping small and medium sized businesses to maximize their profits by maximizing their human capital. He is a serial entrepreneur who's built two multimillion dollar businesses so he understands the complexities and the challenges of building a business from firsthand experience. You're gonna love this conversation and sit back and enjoy. All right, Geoffrey, so you know, I think you've probably heard yourself get introduced as I have, you know, multiple times and all that and it's always kind of funny to hear it. I always find it a little, a little, I don't know, interesting and a little uncomfortable. I don't know exactly why that is. Probably stuff I've got, I still have stuff to work out around my, my own self worth or whatever. But, but it's, it's a, it's a fun thing to sort of hear it. And, and I want to know what's not written in that introduction, what's not a part of the introduction that you would love for people to know about. You just pick know one thing. People to know about you.

You know, that's, that's a really cool, that's a really cool question because like you, I'm, you know, I sit and I listen to this stuff and I kind of cringe a little bit, which I think that's better than just wallowing in it. I mean, that's better. I'm so great. That's so great. Oh, I should have put more in about me, you know, Tell me again how great my hair looks.

Yeah, you got, you've got good hair.

So thanks. So, yeah, you know what's not in that is how challenging all of that was and how I never thought when I was a younger person that any of that stuff could happen. A self doubter that my self doubt is, is a fuel for me, it's a painful fuel and I'm learning how to, you know, really rid myself of it because it's not needed. Self belief is a much better propellant. But yeah, you know, you, you listen to that stuff and you go, wow, that guy must really have his act together. When you know, you don't realize a lot of stuff that I was doing. I didn't know how it was going to turn out or if it was a complete waste of time. But you know, you keep at it and you keep working hard and good things happen.

So yeah, you know, I didn't intend at all to ask this question, but it just coming up now as I'm listening to you say about how self doubt has been a propellant at times, but yet at the same time self belief that might have been what you said, that that's even a stronger, can be a stronger self propellant. I want to come back to that. But for the moment, do you think that, that it, that it. There's something that doesn't make sense in the fact that people when they get older take fewer and fewer risks. When part of what we know as we've gotten older, we're not old, but we've gotten older, is that the reason we've been successful to the degree that we have was the result of a lot of, a lot of mistakes, a lot of fuck ups, a lot of having to pivot and be resilient. You and I are going to talk about that today, of course. But it was in the making those mistakes and moving from the position and having taken a risk that didn't work out in the moment that we evolved into the successes that we've had along the way. And as we get older we go well, you know, they really want to do I really want to. Should I really, you know, would that make sense? What if that goes wrong? Do I really want, you know, any. Do you think that makes sense, Jeffrey?

You know, it really does and it opens up a whole, a whole line of thinking with that. You know, I had. In 2016, I had stage four cancer. And that, that was, it was an amazing gift for, for me it just the things that I've learned from it. We can do a whole other show on that. But one of the things that I really got was that I have a Runway. I mean this party is going to end at some point, right? So I think that I know as I've looked to diversify and what's my next thing et CETERA you know, I just started a big leadership team, certification, training program, et cetera. And one of the reasons that I have hesitated to take some risks, I've ended up taking them. There were two things that were impacting my thinking, what I'll call the fatigue factor. I just don't have the same energy, the same drive. I don't want to be doing 70 hour weeks, et cetera. I want to dial that back. And the other thing is that the fact that I have a shorter Runway, I'll be 66 next month. So I don't. If I go in a direction and I make a big mistake, I don't have the same amount of recovery time. So that shortened Runway on one hand is like, gee, if I mess this up, I don't have another 10, 15 years to recover. But then on the other hand, what I do with that is I go, well, I better get cracking on this stuff because I only have a certain amount of time. So all this stuff either works for you or against you. It's, it's either a foot on the brake or an accelerant, depending upon your mindset. And so much of my work that I do is all based around mindset.

Yeah, I mean, I was thinking that a lot of our audience, a lot of people who listen to this show and a lot of the people that I frankly speak to these days are leading, Are leading other people. Sometimes it's, you know, small organizations, startup type groups, and often it's very experienced larger organizations with, you know, scores of, of managers and senior level leaders. And I guess I'm asking the question because in regard to an organization, anything, anything in the universe that stops evolving ultimately stops, Stops existing. It's sometimes called entropy. And it's a part of the natural process. Things die and things are bor. And that's the way it goes. As you said, we all have a Runway, even an oak tree, you know, or whatever the, the longest living trees or mammals or whatever, you know, everything has a sort of, has its Runway. But when it comes to a, an organization that has a window of time, like we all do, to succeed and deliver value, shareholder value or you know, value to customers and clients and things, if they stop evolving, they will, they will soon start to deteriorate. They will soon begin to, to disintegrate, really, how important is it that the mindset of those managers, especially as they become more seasoned, and I don't mean just in age, but just they become more seasoned, they're more experienced, they're, you know, they, they've been around the block. It's, you know, the saying goes a time or two that they begin to stop taking risks. They, they are themselves potentially have a mindset where it's that same thing. If I messed up at this level, I may not have the time to recover. And by the way, if I screw up and have to leave this company, like it just doesn't go, it goes horribly wrong. You know, and other, other, you know, my, my, my seniors, you know, don't believe in my, in my abilities any longer and I've got to move, I've got to pivot and, and, and find a new home. I'm at a place where I don't really want to, I don't want to go through all that. You think that there's that, that level of sort of playing it safe, playing, you know, playing the status quo card really that exists in the organizations that you've worked with. Do you see that?

Yes. And at that point they cease being leaders and they become managers. And what they're managing is their eventual decline. Because the world is changing so rapidly that trying to plateau is not possible. Because you're not plateauing. You may not be evolving yourself, but you're certainly not standing still. You are de. Evolving. If in today's world, if you're not constantly evolving, you're devolving. And you know, organizations, we have a mechanized viewpoint of organizations. It's a Newtonian view. We see them as machines, we see them as linear, we see them as siloed, we see them as hierarchical, we see them as standard structures. It's the worst possible model we could come up with. Because organizations are not machines. Organizations are organisms. They're living, breathing, adaptive learning entities because they're made up of living, breathing, adapting entities called human beings. And all of my work, my whole body of work for the last 15 years has been to help develop mindsets, models and methods that allow people to go from the Newtonian industrial age mechanized model that worked wonderfully well in the industrial age and in the 20th century. You can't argue with that level of success. But we're not in the industrial age anymore. We're in a network information age that has, you know, you've got at least two different massive societal cultural changes that are colliding with one another that's changing everything. One is, we've got the five most independent minded generations in the history of humanity in the workforce. They're smart, they're mobile, they're on their impatient and they want to have a say in what happens Boomers my age, we want that because we've been around a long time, we've got something to offer. The younger generations want that because they've been raised with that. They can't even imagine not having input. So when you take that level of, that's a, that's a shift in the, the level of consciousness of the worker. It's not a put my head down and an obedient energy field that I'm now dealing with. I'm dealing with a much more vibrant energy field as a leader. And the other thing is the, the advent of technology, you know, specifically the Internet, high speed communications, etc. Has just eliminated time and space and geography from our daily reality. So it's changed so drastically that if you are not adapting yourself, your mindsets, models and methods in your own head and in your organization, you're just managing your decline. And it's like any other thing on, on the downside of a sigmoid curve, it kind of starts to go slowly downward. That's your clue to do something different. And then it just drops like a rock. So organizations that are not embracing this mindset and are not developing the new models and methods to help them exist in this new world are really going to suffer. So will the people in them. And you know, it's like when the dinosaurs died out, the mammals came in and, and, and they did terrifically because they were, they were smarter, they were faster and they were more adaptive and, and that's where we are now. What are the dinosaur organizations and, or, and individuals and what are the next evolution? And it's going to be sorted out.

Yeah, I, I feel like, and you may also believe this or, or feel this way as, as well, I'm on the, I get to be on the front line. I mean I ran organizations for many, many years, law firms and, and other, other startup firms actually that, that I was associated with and in that role of being either a high level leader or a CEO, you know, so in the, in the, the weeds of it, I don't know how else to put it, I was just, you know, nose pressed up against the glass kind of thing, I really had a hard time getting a lot of perspective. I thought I did, you know, get up to 30,000ft and look at things. But not, not so much in, in all honesty, but now being a consultant and do some organizational development work similar to you in that regard. But I also do a lot of keynote speakers. I'm a resilience keynote speaker and a mental health keynote speaker and a Work, life balance, keynote speaker and all these things. I get to be called into organizations to not just deliver a keynote, which is usually, you know, kind of where things start, spend an hour, spend 90 minutes with our folks. But I, because of our work is, is fundamentally about resilience and we have a proprietary assessment tool that people, you know, tend to really get a lot out of. We get invited for this sort of continuity training, the follow up, where we get to actually see what their progress is after they start to make small changes, that kind of thing. So we're right on the front lines and, and I get to hear about things that I just, I feel honored. I honestly feel it's an honor that people are as transparent as they are. Like we were talking to a major accounting firm just last week and, and they were saying, the CEO, who's, you know, not called the CEO, managing partner, but he's saying to me, you know, I've tried so much. I'm, you know, he didn't use the word frustrated. He was just sort of in disbelief that as after the pen, through the pandemic, after the pandemic, he's done everything he could think of and so much more to just get people back into the office to have them want to come back. You know, he's got this brand new office building, he spent tons of money and it's gorgeous and everything. And he's got like, you know, 30% of his people in the office. And it's just driving him, I think it's just, you know, and he called himself a dinosaur. And I said to him, he said, with all due respect, and I'll of course leave out his name. Dinosaurs aren't dinosaurs if they know they're dinosaurs. Right. For you to call yourself a dinosaur means you have a level of self awareness that a dinosaur does not have. I said, so I'll push him back just for a second, buddy, because you're not a dinosaur.

Yeah. Yeah.

But I could really feel like my heart went out to this guy because I know what it's like to be in that position where you just think you're trying everything and yet, you know, if it's not the resignation, the great resignation, it's now this thing they call quietly quitting.

Yeah, Presenteeism they call it, man, I'm present, but I'm not there.

I'm putting you on the spot right here. I'm literally throwing you right on the spot because you're you, you consult in this way. A guy who is, is coming from this place where he Just he feels like he's incentivized his people to be there and he's feeling just in disbelief, not frustration I don't think, but disbelieving that more people haven't decided to return to the office. Jeffrey, I know this is not an easy question in this context, but what do you think? What would you say to him?

What I would say to him is, first of all, thank you for caring. And the fact, just to your point, the fact that you are acknowledging that you think you have dinosaur tendencies means that you don't have as many as you think you do, right?

Yeah.

And I would suggest that the reason people haven't responded is because he didn't go to them and ask them what they wanted. He and his with the best intention. Because you know, everybody, certainly in my generation, everybody's been taught the top down command and control leadership method that management has to come up with the creative ideas, have to solve the big problems. And you know, it's not so much from an ego standpoint, it's from a sense of obligation and responsibility. And I tell senior leaders that I deal with is, you know, that's really unfair, that's unfair to put yourself in that spot when there's so much more help around you. And another way to do it, there's a collective genius around everybody, right? So I call it the bigger no. I know what I know, they know what they know, and together we have a bigger no. So all the work that I do is looking to tap into that collective genius. Because if you get their collective genius, you get their collective energy. And one of the things that I tell you know, what I preach is if you're going to change someone's job, their location, whatever their responsibilities, bring them into the design process before you do it, get their input because you're going to find out what will work, what won't work, and if you really have good intentions and you're just not a dictator and most people aren't, you're not going to have a problem opening that up to them. And they will tell you what will attract them to come back in. And it saves time, saves aggravation on both sides of the equation. So you know, another thing that I help potential dinosaurs. As I say, look, here's how you make sure, here's how you protect yourself from dinosaurism. A new word, thanks to you, is that you meet with those younger people, you know, I'm in my 60s, I'm talking to the 40 year olds, the 30 year olds, etc, because what they need from me is my elder wisdom. I've been around the block, I'm steady, you can't shake me, you can't scare me. You know, I've seen it all and I'm, I'm tough enough. However, what I need from you is your mastery of technology, your fresh legs, and your innovative ideas. Outside of the model that I was raised in, that's no longer working. And you create. I talk about. Organizations aren't, aren't departments. Every organization is a tribe of tribes. So engage them as tribes, engage them in conversation, bi directional conversation, you know, don't always lead from the front. The, the, the three things that the modern leader absolutely has to master is not to be a command and control like we're going to take that hill. Rah, rah, rah. You know, some of that's, some of that's good, but really your role is to be a master communicator, collaborator and a facilitator. You need to be in service of that collective genius. That bigger. No, you need to resource it, you need to activate it and help steer it and guide it. The last company I had, I sold it a week before its 21st birthday. Oh, 17, 18 years ago. It was a data networking firm. We were going to build large networks. So I designed computer networks for 20 years. And one of the things that when you look at the network manager of a computer network, that management software is not in there driving all the actions, it's monitoring the conditions. Do we have a breakdown? Is it going right? Do people have the software that they need, et cetera. It's a facilitator. And that's what you do in a network. That's how you empower and get a network to be this thing that takes energy and exponentially increases its effectiveness and its power by being that. So what we have to do is we have to start shifting from the Newtonian mechanized method to a more organic organization, you know, organizations or organisms. And then we also at the same time have to stop thinking silos and think network. I mean, there's a reason why you take one computer and put it into a network, why it becomes once again the word exponentially faster, more powerful and effective. Because the way that network is designed to operate, there's four basic principles to it. And when you take those same four basic principles and you apply them to building a team, which is a knowledge network, it's a human network, you plug one individual into that team and they become exponentially more effective as well. It's the exact same four pieces. And when I stumbled on out about seven years ago, I about fell off my chair because I just went, oh my gosh. A network is a network is a network, whether the processors are computers or whether they're human beings. Computer network needs processors, we need people. It needs software applications, they need training, they need education, experience. It's applicable to the tasks they're going to do. They need high speed communication networks. They need strong relationships and trust. They need the band. A computer network needs the bandwidth to handle the amount of work that's going through it. These people need time, resources and support. Those four things when, when you assemble a team, looking at, do I have enough processors? People do, do I have the right software and applications in it? Do they have the training, et cetera, do I have the right type of high speed communication networks? Do these people get along? Do they like one another? And if not, maybe I go in and do a little bit of management of that, but at least I know I have to manage that. And most importantly, and this is one of the things that a lot of executives don't think about is the people that are working for me probably already 5, 50 hours worth of work a week anyway. When I add something to them, the biggest question I have to ask myself is what am I going to take off of them? And how? Because if, if, if that, if those people don't have the bandwidth to do the job, the job's not going to get done. If you don't get those four things right as a network designer, that network's going to become a knot work. And then when that network doesn't work, you're going to go in and lean on them and they're going to get upset because they're going to look at you and they're going to say, you didn't design us, right? You didn't resource us, right? And that's one of the reasons why there's conflict between the front line and the front office. I mean, if you look, Gallup has been doing studies on employee engagement for decades. Consistently, only 3 out of 10 employees are engaged. And when Gallup asks the people, so 70% are not engaged. When Gallup asks people, how many would like to be engaged, 70% of the workforce says they want to be engaged. And when I talk to management, I say, how many of you would like your people to be fully engaged? All the hands go up, put your hands down. I ask the workforce, how many people want to be more engaged and participate? All the hands go up, put your hands down. So the Question then becomes, what's the issue? I mean, if there is a baseball manager that could get three of his players out on the field, he'd lose every game, he'd get fired, and he'd never be hired again. But in our world, 30% is, is considered acceptable. So we accept it. So if, if it's not a people problem, what is it? The problem is our model. We're not organism, we're not machines. Organizations are organisms. And when you shift from that mechanized and instead of managing by org chart, you manage by network, things are going to change. I'm in the process of writing a book about what actually drives performance behind the org chart. My research has shown that there's three things behind the org chart that are 100% responsible for performance. Therefore, profits, tribal dynamics, knowledge networks, and culture. And culture is the level of consciousness of the organization. So, and I, I do a ton of work around helping people see what those three pieces are. Because if you go in and you manage the tribal dynamics and you assemble your teams as knowledge networks and you pay attention to the level of consciousness of the people and how they interact, you get that right? You're, you're, your financial, your financial capital is going to go off the scale. You get the human capital right, financial capital is going to work itself out because financial capital is a lagging indicator of the human capital. And we can't keep treating our organizations like machines, and we can't keep treating our people like they're cogs or tools to make the machine work, or we're going to keep getting the 30%. You shift that around and you treat them as a tribe of tribes and you treat them as human beings. People want to be, they want to be engaged. You're going to get that, you know, Stephen Covey once famously said, around trying to be understood, seek first to understand and then to be understood. And I, I have a version of that when it comes to employee engagement. Seek first to engage, then to be engaged. Flip it, you got to flip the paradigm. And because the old paradigms will get you killed in the new world. So the challenge, the people I work with is they're like, we really want to change, but we don't know what the new model is. And how could they. It's taken me 15 years of a ridiculous amount of time, work, research, working it out with my clients. So I know this stuff works. And the thing I tell people I work with is, look, the more you learn about this stuff I'm talking about, the more intuitive it will become. And the more you'll realize how much you already know about it. It's just a paradigm shift.

You know.

I was just going to say it's really cool because it really works.

I mean, you and I, before we, we hit the record and got, got going here we were talking about the importance of resilience and how every, every one of these stories of success or even, or even the, the things that don't feel like success are still stories of resilience in so many respects. I want to, I want to get a sense of what you, how do you feel about that word? I, as I say, my, my bread and butter having written a book called Change Proof, that's all about how you leverage uncertainty as a, as a superpower for resilience. When I work with organizations, it's usually on that culture side because we have to operationalize resilience. But to do that, it has to be baked into the values. It has to be a part of the standard operating procedures. They have to model and reflect that. There has to be modeling and permission given for people to actually see that this, this is not just the, you know, the thing, the check mark today, the idea du jour, you know, it's, it's, it's real. And there has to be partnership, there has to be, there has to be support that's baked in so that people can actually work in a new arena which the, the resilience arena is new for a lot of people because we're, at least according to our research, it, the, the, as you said earlier, the paradigm has changed. But a lot of people don't realize that that's the case. Or even if they do realize that the paradigm has shifted, they don't know what the new one is. And until they know what the new one is, they still lean back on the, on the old one, the outdated one, the one that doesn't work. And that outdated model is one where we see resilience as our capacity to just go forward, no matter what, tenaciously, persistently. Look, I'm a very tenacious and persistent person and it's had its, it has a level of importance in my life. And yet I know that if all I ever do is tirelessly try to plod forward the grit mentality, I will, I will become exhausted. And the older I get, the more I realize that that's true. But it's now true for 30 year olds that we are burning people out. You know, used to be that the, it was the 55 year old waiting on retirement in school, you Know who was reading the paper in history class? You know, the teacher that was no longer engaged, right or present. Now that, that, that's back to 28, 29 year olds are at the point of burnout, not 55 year olds or exclusively so. So I want to get a sense of how important resilience is to you, Jeffrey, in your experience in working with leaders and teams. And I also want to get a sense of how important it is to you personally.

Resilience is absolutely essential. It's the lifeblood to everything that we do if we're looking to move forward and not die on the bind. In the 80s sustainability, 80s and 90s sustainability was the ultimate goal. And a friend of mine I talked to you about Larry Quick a little bit earlier, the guy does genius level stuff around resilience. He helped me to understand the difference between sustainability and resiliency and the superiority of resiliency. And he said sustainability is about getting hit and getting back up. Resiliency is getting hit and getting back up, stronger, smarter, more agile. And you know, there's a difference between resiliency and stubbornness. Big, big, big difference. Both of them require a level of perseverance. But stubbornness is a one trick pony. Stubbornness is, you know, I'm going to go. And you know what, God bless. I've accomplished a lot of things because I'm bonehead and stubbornness. But as I've gotten a little bit older, little, a little lazier, a little smarter, I was like, wait a minute, that there's other ways to do this. And it's about being agile. And you know, when a door is closed, you don't have to smash through it. Maybe you can go around it, maybe it's the wrong door. Maybe you, you know, hit a trampoline and go over it like whatever, just being agile with your thinking. And that is how you tap in to the, the creative genius of yourself as an individual and the collective genius of all the other selves that are associated with you by being open, looking for best idea wins. Get the ego out of the picture. As a leader, if you're not leading from the standpoint of trying to get the organization, if you're not, if you're not trying to lead the people to the best thinking, the best processes and the best environment possible, you're not leading and you're not leading. You know, my book is called Developing the Conscious Leadership mindset for the 21st century. And it's all about that. It's all about, you know, the, the first step to the path on the path of leadership is an inward one, and so are all the rest. Because if I can't lead and manage myself, I've got no right coming out and telling you what you should be doing. And leadership's a state of consciousness. People will follow your directions if you have authority over them. But I want to function with a level of consciousness where people look and they see that I'm authentic, I have integrity, and I respect them and myself and the organization so that they look and they will, they, they will respect my consciousness enough to follow my direction. And if I have people working for me who follow my directions, this minute I stop giving them directions, they're probably going to stop. If I can create a workforce that is following my direction. And what is that direction? Authenticity, integrity, respect, performance. Let's create a Navy SEAL team here. Let's not be the regular Navy. Regular Navy is awesome. Thank you for your service. But let's go out and kick some ass. Let's have some fun, you know, let's develop this team. And all we have to do is tap into that collective genius that we all have and make it part of it. And it gets to the point where people love the idea so much and you have to flatten your network out a bit. You know, I mean, I, I, I have to be used to being humbled in front of people that, I mean, I've been humbled by a dock worker one time, and at first it didn't feel good, but after that, I was really glad that I was, because smart is smart. You know, degrees don't make you smart. They don't make you wise. You know, people are brilliant. I, I was raised poor. I've got a whole section of my family that, you know, that they share the tooth at Thanksgiving. I mean, that's a rough crowd. But, man, these people, they know how to fix things. They know how to work because they've never had resources. So they're incredibly resourceful, and they're smart. So. And I've also been around people literally at genius level, and everybody has a genius level somewhere. And it's my job as the leader to maximize where their capabilities are and to put them in a position where their talents can, can make them feel good and they can grow and can help the organization. And if you're not leading with that level of consciousness, you're, you're really not leading.

Yeah, no. I mean, I just so appreciate so many things you shared with us, Jeffrey, that, you know that it's a knowledge network that you're you're creating a knowledge network, a genius network, if you will. But yeah, but that, that's, that's really one of the most important things that leaders can do. The, this communication, collaboration, facilitation. Those three. Did I get those three correct? You know, so often it is right that we're thinking, we think things are thought of in silos. And, and that doesn't, that doesn't, that's not the way nature works. So, you know, everything is, everything is integrated. And it's always the case that what's under the ground reveals what's above the ground at some point. You know, that the things that we can't see are often very, very powerful in nature. And, and it would be the same. I think you're using the word consciousness in that, in that respect. That consciousness is this. It's, it's the, it's the process, it's the context, not necessarily the content. And we can be almost agnostic as to the content. Right, Because a great leader, the way you're describing a conscious leader, and I very much lean into that very same viewpoint worldview is that you could take any, any conscious leader and drop them in any organization. Doesn't matter what, doesn't matter what the widget is, doesn't matter what the service you're providing is. But ultimately understanding, understanding how you, how.

You.

You develop people through context as opposed to through content is I think, pretty magical.

Miraculously, I am proof that what you just said is true. I built my company's first. My first company was a cable television construction and engineering firm. Made it for seven years and it crashed. My next company I started is cable television, but it was in 87. So I jumped in and I saw the birth of the telecommunications industry. Voice, data, video. I mean, I was right in the front lines of that. And you know, so that was kind of what, what my, what my professional experience is today. I can take these processes and this level of consciousness and I've worked with top level defense contractors, I've worked in accounting firms, I've worked in nonprofits, I've worked in logistics, I've worked in healthcare. I've worked everywhere. And what I people say, what business do you work in? I. Any business has people in it because you need to know what your discipline is. You need to know what you're doing for a living. Like I depend upon you to be good at that. And I'm assuming you are because you're in business. So you bring that piece. What I'm going to bring in is how to help you maximize that human capital you've got around you. Because every organization is a living, breathing, talking library. And you can go in and that library will tell you every problem you have, the source of it, probably, how to fix it, like it's brilliant. And not anyone in there has all those answers, but collectively, you bet they do. And the ones that they don't, who cares? You're gonna have enough. You're gonna have enough to work on with the things that they have. That's going to increase your bottom line, increase your morale, increase the functionality of your organization, and it becomes fun. And you. You get to this point of, you know what? Let's. We're activated here. We're energized. You literally change when you change your level of consciousness. You change the energy field in which you operate higher or lower. You know, when you feel joy, you're energized. When you're happy, you know, the. Like, I'm a New York Giants fan. The Giants won yesterday. Like, oh, my God, I couldn't believe it.

Well, it's miraculous. I'm a recur. I'm a not recovered Giants fan myself. Former season ticket holder, too. So, yeah, we spent a few minutes in. In the seats there back when they actually won some games. So, yeah, congrats to all the. All the struggling Giants fans out there. I think the only thing we got going for us is we're not jets fans. Oh. Oh, that hurts. I'm sorry. All my Jets.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry, guys.

All right.

Yeah. At least we're not jets fans, right?

People that don't give a. About football. Sorry to you all as well. We took up 30 seconds with that. Jeffrey, my final question is really, I just got to put you in the fryer again because it's so. It's so topical at the moment. And more than topical, it's. It's a real thing, you know, this concept of quietly quitting as. As a, you know, so people are maybe not resigning as quickly as they were when, you know, inflation wasn't quite as noticeable or when some other situations, I suppose, you know, were different. Like, you know, that there was. There was a backstop from the government if they decided to leave their job. Now, maybe not so much. So what is this quietly quitting thing, do you think? What's this all about? Your wisdom on that subject would be. Would be wonderful.

I think it's a combination of several factors that are all coming together that are real, legitimate, and incredibly important that we start getting our. As leaders. We start Getting our, our heads around. The first thing is we need to accept that the fact that this new generation that's coming in is wired differently when it comes to how they see their work life balance. I'm 66, you know, I was climbing telephone poles and towers when I was 17 and 18 years old. I'm a hard, hard working guy, right. No snowflakes on me, except if I'm in a blizzard. And the stuff that I do is, has, there's no Kumbaya in it. It's all designed to really work. So you've got this younger group that's in here and they also don't have the same, they're not pushed out of the nest as quickly. Right. And these people that are sitting there, some people call it presenteeism where they're just really disengaged, they're sad, they wish they weren't, they're bored, they don't know what to do. So what I look at is I look at management and I say, okay, you have an upset going on because you need more performance. So take a look and seek first to understand, then to be understood. Take a look and find out what it is that's upsetting these people. And it can really be frustrating to be sitting there listening to this stuff because you don't relate to it. You want to just yell at them to suck it up. But really true leaders, I need you to understand that I'm at least respecting you enough where I want to hear what you have to say and then in that I'm going to ask for you to hear what it is that I have to say. And then in that I'm going to say, can we align upon the fact that neither of us are happy? I'm not. You're not. Okay, good. Now we've just aligned on something where we're both in the same unhappy bucket. How do we get out of this? You know, you tell me some things, I'll tell you some things and let's see how far we can move the needle. You're, you're not going to move the needle all the way over to Happyville. But, but what's going to happen is more important than, than the most important thing that's going to happen with that is you're going to improve the level of trust and the human relatedness to one another.

Yes.

I'm constantly telling people, see the human in the human. Everybody's had, everybody is challenged. You know, there's nobody that has a, a free ride. I mean everybody's got stuff going on in their lives, either professionally, if it's not financially, it could be health, it could be family, it could be dysfunction, who knows? But let's take this opportunity to create a work environment where it's maybe a little bit of a sanctuary where, yeah, we're going to have our ups and downs. But this is a place. I call it leading with air. This is a place where you come in here, it's a place of authenticity, integrity, and respect. And the respect has three parts to it. You know, authenticity is me being me and accepting who I am. There's a great quote from Rumi that says, I am what I am because this one is like that, and that's self acceptance. And you be that with as much grace as you can muster. Don't be a jerk and just go, hey, this is how I roll. So, you know, be authentic. And then integrity is about being authentic in the world and having good character and being honest and that type of stuff. But respect is about me respecting me and my boundaries, you and your boundaries, and respecting whatever, whomever it is, who's paying us. And if we work within that realm, we're going to move the needle further than what it is now. And when that happens, all of a sudden we feel the things are different, that energizes us, and we want more of that. Because up to that point, the person that's sitting there, who is. Who has resigned without quitting, they're in a form of resignation and they're not happy. They're not. So that's.

It's.

That's what it is.

You have to do.

It's a. I don't know who said this. It sounds like a roomy thing to say, but it's. The quote is that problems are good because they show you where your problems are. And I think that's. That's really here, that it's. It's an interesting thing, you know. What do you mean problems are good? Right? They are, because then you don't have blind spots as to. As to what those things are. Right? So as difficult as this is, to be on the front line as you and I are, and speaking with organizations about these challenges that they are having, they are also great opportunities to address things that otherwise could be cancerous. You know, that things that are happening that you're. That you're unaware of, that are. That are, as you said earlier, more devolving than evolving, there's an opportunity for. For evolution, for evolving out of it, and that's what's good about it. So the fact that it's showing up. Yeah, it's a, It's a, it's a, Another sort of a wave. You know, we've got hit with wave after wave. Organizations, leaders have been hit with too many waves to count. Teachers, people on the front lines, people in the medical profession, nurses and doctors. And I mean, there's just so many groups that are just flat out exhausted from the wave after wave after wave of change, of uncertainty, of all of that. So, so to have yet one more wave that we're now, you know, giving a label to. Is this quiet resignation thing happening. You don't necessarily want it, but I think it is, it is, it is a very good sign that we can see it. Another expression that I heard some years ago that I love was that what's coming is going. You can think about all the problems in your life, all the things that are maybe not to your liking in this moment about whatever. And, and at the same time, you can, you can acknowledge that whatever's coming is also going. It's, it's a good sign on some level that you're. That you can see it, that you can. It's like we said earlier, the, the guy who thinks he's a dinosaur isn't a dinosaur because he thinks he's a dinosaur. And that level of self awareness, it, it changes it. He's. It trends. It's transmuting the situation. It's something different because he's questioning and he is sensitive. And I think we think about this younger group of folks, millennials and Gen Z, they are questioning more in part, and they're sensitized and sensitive to these things in part because they have a different consciousness than the one that you grew up in and had early. That I did. And I think that, that again, while it's challenging for someone of a different generation to, to actually be able to understand that, to seek first to understand. It's difficult to understand that there's something really, quite, quite magical, miraculous, mysterious, certainly in all of that. So I so appreciate hearing your perspective on that, Jeffrey. Really do.

Yeah. You know, and if, If I really sit down and ask and seek to understand you, I get to ask you to seek to understand me as well, you know, because this, this is, this is about fairness. You know, it's, it's, it's about equity. It's like, look, you want to be heard, okay? And then I want to be heard too. And if you can't listen to me, then how can you expect someone else to. To listen to you? And you know, young people question everything, but at the same time there's this paradox. They already think they know everything because from whatever news source they're getting, that's what they're parroting out. And there's a lot of them who don't go in like young people don't. It's, it's not just their generation, it's generational. Young people are quicker to believe than they are to research. And I think that's the big challenge we have now. And you know, there's just so many social media platforms out there and so many places where, you know, we're just breathing our own exhaust and our echo chambers and what have you.

Well, begs the question sort of what is research anyway now? And we don't, we can't digress there. But the fact that a lot of people, what people call research is just what they read online and that may not quite, I mean, I'm not saying it's not, I'm not pointing a finger to say something is or isn't because I couldn't. I'll just say that, you know, a great piece of advice that a first early mentor of mine when I was sort of 17 and working as a summer camp counselor said to me, says take it from the source. And that was in regard to particular person at this camp was, happened to be one of the owners who was annoying the shit out of me. I was just getting under my skin and this guy was watching it agitate me and he's a 40 something year old guy and he says look, this guy's, look at this guy's very passionate, intense young man. I think he's going to do great things in his life, you know, but if he keeps getting kind of drawn into this emotional distress, you know, he's going sideways because somebody, he says take it from the source. And I, and I really, it took me a lot of years to sort of really unpack what that, that, what that wisdom was, what that advice was. And now I, I do get it because the people, you know, if you're, if, if you don't consider your source carefully, you could get, you could get led into a lot of that. You can go down a lot of rabbit holes, right? You can end up in a lot of places that you don't know how you even got there to begin with and that, you know, you and I could talk about that socially, politically, in every which way, in every context, right? So I just say that as I'm, I'm sharing that old, old wisdom and Advice that I got a long time ago with anybody that, that makes sense to, and anybody that, you know, might need to hear that in this moment, actually take it from the source. But, but I just love the way the conversation flowed today. Jeffrey said, thank you so much for that. You know, my own, my own take on this. This right now, from the standpoint of what we, what we spend our time researching, thinking about, talking to people about, like yourself, is that people are, are not feeling cared for. And first wave was people leaving because they could find the grass they thought would be greener elsewhere. We know that the grass isn't greener. They don't know that, but we know that. And a lot of those people will even try to return if they didn't burn a bridge when they left. Right. Many cases. And now we got this other thing, this, you know, quiet resignation, quietly quitting thing. And again, I think it's because people are genuinely not just not having their needs met. And so I want to go back to what you said at the beginning, which is that, you know, if we're willing to have conversations and ask people, what do you need? Like that's the CEO that I was, the managing partner, you know, to find out what they need instead of trying to be like, you know, they pay me the big bucks so that I can figure out how to solve every problem. That's why I get the big pay. Right? But we know that that's a bit ego, but it's also a bit BS because you're not going to solve this by yourself. So speaking to any leader out there who's felt that same frustration with how to get people back to work, how to keep them inspired or engaged, you know, bring somebody like Jeffrey in to help you talk about it, talk to the people within your organization about, have really transparent conversation, relatable conversation that creates trust because that's where you're going to get the, the collective genius that Jeffrey was speaking about. The bigger, the bigger understanding, the bigger. No, that comes from this, this humility, really not thinking that because you're a senior level person and you make the big bucks and congrats on that, that somehow or another you have to figure it all out because that's what you're being paid to do. And I get that, but that's just a recipe for, for again, not understanding and then watching as things devolve around you and just being in disbelief at the fact that it's happening.

You know, and if you're really getting paid to solve the problems, then how can you argue that multiple brains are not smarter. You plus multiple brains are not smarter than just you. So if you're really paid to solve the problem, it's not that your job is to solve the problem. And that means you need to pull as many brains in as possible. It's not a singular act, it's a collective act. And one point that I want to make sure that I touch on here, because, you know, I mentioned earlier, this stuff is not about Kumbaya. You know, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to look to try to understand you, want you to understand me. But all along I know that we need to perform here, you know, so there has to be consequences in this, and they've got to be clear and they've got to be defined. Because if a culture without consequences is chaos and I can't lead a chaotic organization, I'm not getting paid to lead a chaotic organization. So there has to be consequences where, you know, we've worked with a lot of people and say, look, man, we either got. I hear what you're saying. This is my obligation to make this thing happen and to do the best I can with you, but we either need to move you up or I need to move you out. Because if you're a bad seed here, you're negatively affecting the other people who want to do good work. And we can't have that because that's a low level of consciousness. So how can I help you get up to where you're performing the way you should be and not a distraction. And if not, all due respect, but you need to go somewhere else. And we're going to make sure that happens and those consequences. Oftentimes I've worked with a lot of. A lot of people, very challenged. I had construction companies, right? Sometimes the workplace was the only safe place these people have been in based on how they were raised. But I had to set up consequences so that it would hit them in the head a couple times to go, maybe I should change my behavior because I don't want to go home and tell my spouse that we don't have a job. And I didn't want them that either. I told one guy, I said, I've been working with them for weeks. And I said, you know, I can't want you to have your job more than you want the job. So you either got to start coming up or. Or I gotta. I gotta get you out. And no harm, no foul, you know, love you either way. But this is real world, and I think you really have to have that in there. And especially with these younger people, you know, sometimes they need to hear that. There's a lot of wisdom in discipline, and discipline is a learned skill and sometimes it's learned in a, in a hard class.

Yeah, no doubt. Well, listen there. There's so much we know that we can. It's a great depth that we can go into a lot of these things. So I just want to say thank you again for the time and the insight today. I know our folks have enjoyed it, getting a lot out of it. And I'll speak to our audience right now in saying goodbye. I want to just say, first of all, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or somebody that you know that might just need to hear some of this or all of this. We always love those five star reviews. So please feel free to leave that. We love that too. On Apple, on itunes, et cetera, wherever it might be that you're listening and consuming your podcasts. Also, feedback is like air. It's oxygen for us. So you can go to AdamMarkel.com podcast and leave a comment or question for myself or for Jeffrey, and of course, we can connect on LinkedIn and elsewhere. And I look forward to doing that. I'll close by saying there's an old TV show, it's really at this point kind of dating things, dating myself, I suppose, called Hill Street Blues. Some of you may have seen it, but I. We have a. We spend half the year up on the Cape and half the year in Southern California. We're on the east coast at this moment in time. And, and that was a show based in Boston. And at the end of the show, the sergeant was a tough guy. And I think this is actually pretty, you know, appropriate to what you just, you just shared Jeffrey about discipline. You know, he was really tough character, this sergeant. And, and they were working, you know, this precinct was in kind of a, you know, South Boston, tough area, you know, and, and he would say to his guys, you know, finish up the, the meeting and, and, you know, their, their morning gathering. And just as they were getting ready to, you know, leave, he would, he would say to everybody, hold on, hold on, hold on. He says, listen, be careful out there. And he would stop and he'd pause and he'd, you know, make icon. It was a great, wonderful way, you know, to me that that show showed that even this tough guy, even this guy, I mean, he really was a tough sergeant, you know, had that level of discipline, that discipline came from a place of heart. It. It was born out of his love, actually, for his people, for his the men and women that were in blue. And, and he didn't want them to get, you know, he wanted them to be safe, and he wanted them to do their jobs well, you know, and have, and feel good about the work they were doing. So, so that's what I'm going to leave you all with right now. Be, be careful out there. Thank you, Jeffrey. Appreciate your time today.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change Proof. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcast. For more Resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change proof teams, visit AdamMarkel.com BecomeChange Proof.